Ep 27 Emotional intelligence: The relationship between happiness and creativity

In this episode of The Crazy One, Stephen Gates poses a thought-provoking question: “Do you know what you need to be happy?” Surprisingly, many struggle to find an answer. Join Stephen as he explores the vital connection between self-awareness, happiness, and creativity. Discover why happiness is essential for fostering creativity, how it can enhance your creative process, and the impact of decision fatigue on your overall well-being. Tune in to unlock the keys to a happier, more creative life!

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Stephen Gates : 0:00

What's going on everybody, and welcome to the 27th episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership design, and a whole host of other things that matter to creative people. And it's a new year. And it's a new all of us, right? We've all made new year's resolutions to make ourselves better. And I found myself over the holiday taking some time to think back about the past year, take some time to think about the show, and in particular, take some time to think about the last show. And it was a show where I kind of went on a bit of a rant. And it was something where it really led me to think about something else that goes on with creativity, something that I think we don't talk about very much something we probably actually don't even talk about much at all. And it just seems appropriate with the holidays being over with a new year starting to talk about happiness. And why are we going to talk about this? Why am I going to dedicate an entire show to happiness and don't worry, I haven't gone crazy and joined to drum circles. This isn't some insane New Year's resolution for me to be able to do this the the honesty, the the directness, it will all still continue. But the reality is, is that I just think it's something that is an incredible influence on creativity. But it's something that nobody talks about. Creativity is fun, whether you are creative as a profession, or whether you just create as a hobby or anything like that. It gives you this euphoric feeling, creating this fun, but I really think that there's something more that's going on, especially for those of us who do it for a living. We don't have the luxury of just creating all the time, creativity is bigger than that. And we're gonna dig into a bit more of that divide here in a minute. But this whole show, this whole topic for me probably started a couple years ago, because one of the things that I found was, I could really see that I didn't wasn't sure a lot of creatives really understood how to be happy. And what I started doing was I started to ask a lot of young creative As I started to ask people who had come in for interviews, one simple question, very, very simple, but I think, as with most simple questions deceiving in how complicated the answer can be, I would just simply ask them, Do you know how to be happy? there look on their face, whenever you would ask somebody that is always fascinating. And take a minute, just right here and think about it for yourself. Do you know how to be happy? Do you know what you need to be happy? If you look at what's going on, whether in your work or your personal life? Are you happy? Not a big explanation. Don't overthink it? What was the first word that came into your mind? Was it Yes. Or was it No. And the thing that I saw was that it was this simple question. Do you know how to be happy? But so incredibly few people knew how to answer it, especially be able to answer it with any amount of specificity. In some cases, I had people who had come back literally days later, telling me that they had not been able to sleep that they had Continue to wrack their brain about happiness. Why? Or are they happy? Weren't they happy? That it was the lack of the answer that seemed to bother them so much that it was this thing that was sitting just in the outer darkness of their consciousness. That was something that they knew that they needed to think about. It was something that they knew that they needed to address. But no one had ever asked them that no one had ever said, Do you know how to be happy personally or professionally? And I think that the reality is, is that I think for a lot of people, especially for creatives, happiness is a struggle. And I think that honestly, the better you are at being creative, the more of a struggle it can become. And I think that it's complicated by the fact that the concept of happiness also just changes, it changes over your life and it changes over your career. What made you happy when you're in kindergarten, what makes you happy today are vastly different and in most cases, vastly more complicated. And honestly, I think it's also something that I wanted to talk about because it's something even for whatever success that I found in my career. It's a thing that I constantly constantly struggle with, whether it was feeling and really struggling with how to be happy trying to find my own creative voice. I grew up with a father that was a creative director and for a large part of my career, especially in the early part of it, I wasn't Stephen, I was David son. And don't get me wrong. Growing up as a son of a creative director is absolutely without a doubt why I am where I am today. It gave me an edge it gave me a head start it gave me an advantage that is undeniable. But finding my own way and finding my own voice was a struggle and finding how to be happy with that was hard. And then once I got through that part of my career, it was really struggling with how do I be happy in my own skin? How do I be happy with my own style? How do I be happy with my voice at a time when I felt like I thought different than most people I talked to different than most people I would tend to be more honest or hard hitting than most people. It makes me somebody who is I'm sure hard to be married to sometimes because I don't have that filter. I'm hard. to be friends with, it's why I have a huge amount of acquaintances, very few friends. But it's also I had to go so far as to get here's the crazy ones tattooed on my right arm as a reminder, because it wasn't an insignificant struggle for me. And then I think you know, lately honestly, the more leadership you take on, the bigger your role becomes, I also think the harder happiness can be defined. Because especially for somebody like me, I'm a designer, I love to create. But the reality is, is that in the role that I have now in the roles that I've had in the past, they pulled me further and further away from being a designer and into being a leader. It's just simply the fact of if you do that, in any profession, if you're a cook, you get into it because you love to cook. But as you become a chef, you're not working on the line anymore, cooking the food, you're overseeing what's going on. So it's this transition. And that you know, for me, it is in my current state, finding happiness, as the size of my teams have grown and as a result, the size of the problems I'm asked to solve have grown. You know, the real fast Is it far from promoting creativity, depression, or the lack of happiness. And let's not necessarily say that not being happy means that you're depressed. But it makes it harder for people to be creative. And in many cases, I've seen that they can only start being creative again, once their mood improves. None of us talk about this stuff. I've never gone to a conference, I've never seen a podcast, where people will talk or acknowledge the role that emotion, let alone happiness plays in creativity. And we've talked about this in past episodes. But I think that this is one of these things where social media is also adding more pressure, because we're all working to create this image of ourselves of who we want to be as opposed to who we really are. And I think it's not that different in our careers where the case studies, we put out the acknowledgement that we want the likes that we crave, make us feel like we're living a double life. And I think that that's a big part of it for me, and it always fascinates me whenever I get people who come up to me after the talks I give whenever I get people who Write in whenever they talk to the show, one of the things that they say most often is, it's just so great that you're honest. And I'm always I guess, on the one hand, I'm happy about that. But on the other hand, the fact that that is actually a compliment, let alone that is one that is deserving to be called out and be called out as being something different, I think just demonstrates the state of what it is that we're trying to do that we all want to talk about how great and how perfect everything is. So I want to take this show and said some light on this, I want to talk about this a little bit, I want to talk a little bit about some of the struggles that I've had, I want to talk about some of the things that I've learned, but just start to pull this subject apart a little bit because I think this is yet again one of these things that lurks under the surface. When we talk about creativity that just simply isn't acknowledged enough. The show is going to be in two simple parts. The first one is to really understand happiness and creativity in it's two parts of creating and being creative. What are those two things mean? How do we separate them? How do we understand them? And then the second part is how can we be happier? How can we help protect the tool, the gift that is creativity so that we can subnet more readily that we can understand the role that emotion plays into it, and try to help position ourselves in a place where we can be more creative and understand the role that this plays in it. Let's start with happiness and creativity in two parts, because what I want to do is I want to define exactly where I see this problem. And to do that we said this before, let's pull this apart because I think the creative process really falls into two distinct areas that are inextricably linked. But I think that in too many cases, they get lumped together into one generic process or one generic term that I don't necessarily think is right. The first one is creating the act of actually sitting down and creating something. The other one is being creative, which is the moments before and after that lead up to actually the creation and then what happens because you come Out of that process. So let's actually kind of like, start by looking at this. And let's dig into each one of these separately. So let's start with creating, being creative, I really think creates a huge amount of happiness. There are tons of studies, if you go out and you Google creativity and happiness, the thing that comes back, the research that comes back really shows that anyone is happier and more productive when they are being creative. But that's why I said is I think this is where they get the word wrong. I think this is when they are creating, not being creative. Because whenever you are creating, of course, you're happy. Because I think that it's one of those places where we feel like we're solving a problem, we're doing something, we're creating something and that the only frustration that may come out of that is when we struggle to find something new to find the opportunity where we're not happy with the work, but that's frustration which is different than not being happy. So I think that that's the first part of it. But I think that for this, this isn't really where I think the problem lies. Because for most people, it is a process. It's a process that you can come to understand. It's something that you can come to summon that whenever you're actually doing the act itself. There's a huge amount of satisfaction that comes from that. It's, it's just the base thing that pulls us all into this, the frustrations only come whenever we need either from ourselves or from other people to be pushed, to take more risks, to refine our process to continue to grow and to do some of those things, right. But I don't necessarily think that for the cause of this, or at least for me, that that's really where the problem with happiness has come into to bear on this. Whenever I'm creating. I've found the insights already I found the problem, I've created the empathy. I've done a lot of this actual actual work and in so many cases, this is where for me, it really is for my particular profession where great design is a visual expression of great thinking. So if I've already done the thinking I've already done the strategy To do that, I have a really good idea of what I want to create. And then it's just the fun of getting it out of my head and onto a piece of paper or up on the screen, or something like that. But it's actually just letting that idea exit and because on some sort of a tangible form, but let's talk about this other half. Let's talk about being creative. Because I think this is where the problem lies. And I think this is where the frustration for most people lies. And I think that honestly, there are probably three things that I think can contribute to this problem. I think as I go through this, you'll empathize with it, you'll understand what it is that I'm saying. I don't know that anything as a part of any of these shows, necessarily, necessarily feels like rocket science to me. But I think it's just simply pulling it out into the light of day and acknowledging it so that you can understand it for what it is and look at it that makes the difference. So that it may be a problem that you can empathize with, but you've never actually put in the time to think about how does it really affect you. And the first one is the fact that I think that being creative is a double edged sword. Being creative means that we look at a problem or a situation or a way of doing things. And we say it could be better. We find the faults, we find the shortcomings. We look for the new connections, the new ideas, the new ways of being able to kind of solve that problem to do that differently. That could be an app, it could be a website, it could be a way of speaking or communicating or cooking a dish or building a house or anything else. But there's a need where you look at that, and that inner creative voice in you says, There's something here that I need to say there's something here that I need to make or build or give to the world, because I think I can do it better. And then, but I think that the challenge with this, and the thing that we need to recognize is that in that moment, we see the flaws and the opportunities at the same time. But I think that in so many cases I don't know, or at least for me, the ability to see the flaw in the opportunity isn't always necessarily contained, just to my work, that I think that as it affects happiness, and I talked about this a minute ago, I see those same flaws and opportunities, with my wife, with my friends with the people that I work with, with my team, with with everything, there's not an off switch where I can stop seeing things that way. And I think that's a hard part. I think that it's one of those things for me, where I've had to learn, how do I put the laptop down? How do I be present in my relationship? How do I be present in my friendship? How do I also just try to even if you see the flaw, how do you not act on it? And just kind of let it sit and because I think that this is the struggle is that we don't have this ability to turn this off. And if it runs out of control, then all of a sudden everything seems to be wrong for you. every relationship every piece of work everybody on your team every because rallies, everything can always be better. Do you need to be the one that's going to fix it becomes the problem. But it's just you have to be aware of this double edged sword because I think if you're not careful, it can take a real toll. And you have to be able to understand when is it warranted? When is it needed? When do you let that part of your brain come out and play? And when, again, you're not gonna be able to shut it off. But when do you just kind of give it a different positioning and give it a different voice? I think the next thing that really comes into play here honestly, really comes into the psychology of summoning your creativity. Because I think this is what it becomes so much a part of, as we get into solving that problem as we go from the bridge of, hey, that could be better to here's the thing. I design that space in the middle where we find the insights where we build the empathy where we go through doing that, thinking that's the moment we're asked to summon and be creative. We are not necessarily creating something in that but we are being Creative. Were trying to put the dots together so that you're asked to summon your creativity. And I think the challenge is that the more senior you become, the more often you're asked to do this. This is one of those things where if I walk in, and I'm talking to a CEO, or I'm talking to, you know, a senior member of the team, or I'm talking to my boss, and they asked me about my opinion, they asked me to be creative, they asked me for an idea, I need to be able to render an opinion very, very quickly, I need to be able to give feedback, I need to be able to cite an opportunity, and you have to be able to do it quickly after able to summon my creativity in that moment. And that's hard. And I think that part of this really is knowing that it's not only knowing your creative process, but it's knowing how to find the insights and how to really kind of understand and Marshal your process. We're not going to go into details about this if that's something that you're interested in. The very first show light bulbs are bullshit and then the episode 26 and one right before this creativity is a blue collar profession, really talked about how do you understand your creativity. process and then how do you find insights? We're not gonna do that here. But what we are going to do is we're going to talk about that I think the thing that layers across both of those, your process and the ability to find insights is your mindset. And kind of the ability to summon your creativity when that moment happens. That's where happiness in your mindset, I think, honestly has a lot to do with it. So we talked about before that if you're depressed, if you're in a bad mental state, it actually can physically block your creativity. It really, it hinders. And it makes it hard. And so this is something that I've wanted to understand. It's something that I was trying to kind of figure out how do I get people through this. And the area that I returned to a lot of study is sports psychology. One of the things that you'll do is if you talk to a batting coach or somebody like that, like let's let's use baseball as an example here, that what you're going to do is when you talk to a batting coach, you know, they're gonna coach athletes that to really understand that when they're in a good headspace that baseball is going to look like a basketball like it's very easy to hit because they feel like oftentimes we'll talk about being in the groove. But I think the groove is really just a good head state, it's being in a good state of mind. Because what they'll also then talk about is if they're in a bad place, if they're not in the groove, that hitting that baseball, all of a sudden is like hitting a grain of rice. Well, obviously, the size of the ball hasn't changed. what's changing is really just their brain and its ability to command their body to do what it needs to do to be able to hit that baseball. I don't think creativity is really any different. That if you are down if you are depressed, if you are frustrated, if you can't control your emotions, then you can't summon that creativity in that moment. Or if you can, it's much, much harder. And I think that this is where you really see a lot of people struggle where they don't necessarily understand that they need to control their emotions. Look, just because I'm in my 40s doesn't mean that I'm gonna you know, constantly come back and pick up Millennials but I do think this is a huge trend that I see in the creatives that I interview and the creatives who are on my team who are millennials, because I think in millennials, the reason why they're struggling in the creative fields in some cases is because this is an entire generation that has the lowest self confidence of any generation in history. If they're constantly walking around in that headspace, in a bad head place, then somebody their creativity is much harder, or they're prone to being more emotional or getting more down on themselves, which makes it harder for them, to then to be able to go on and to be able to summon their creativity. But I think no matter what your age is, no matter what your experience is, you need to understand your process. You need to understand how you control your headspace to stay creative, because emotion does play a part of this. And this is why for me if I'm getting frustrated, if I've had a bad day, if something is going on and I know that my next meeting is something where I'm going to have to go in and be creative. I'll go for a walk, I'll take a break, I'll go sit in a dark room for five minutes, I'm going to do something, to try to get my emotions under control to let the stress go to try to position myself to be as successful as I can in that moment to understand that for me right now, the baseball is a grain of rice. And I've got to change that. For me. It's because I've taken the time to recognize what does that feel like to check in on my emotional state? It's like I said, I think some people feel like this starts to get very touchy feely, like, Well, you know, you've got to be happy before you create. And that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is just simply, creativity is a tool and like any tool, you need to know how to use it. And you need to understand what do you need to do to make it as effective as it can be? This is why I think you know, certain people will have spaces they really, really like to create in or their areas that they like to go or things they like to do well, that's all that they're doing is they're putting themselves in the right headspace. So just understand that for what it is and then just be Be aware of it and understand how to control it. The next one is then just the simple evolution your career is going to take. And we already hit on this a little bit. But the reality is, is that your career is going to change several times as this goes along. And as a creative person, you're going to need to readjust What is your concept of happiness. Because in the early days, so often being happy really comes from executing and just purely creating, because as we come into this industry, as we start to do this, whether as a child or as the beginning of our career, we're just creating, and that makes us very, very happy. It's why we do this, because we get that dopamine hit of wow, this is really cool. But as we move on, it goes from being happy, just creating something to then creating ideas and maybe then starting to do it, that execution part of it with other people. And what's that like? Because now I'm dependent on other people, other people are a part of this process. And that adds a whole nother dynamic to this because now not only am I responsible for my emotions and my creativity, but now I'm responsible for how that now starts to affect other people. Well, then you start to have to do that even more, because now you're having to lead even more people and work with them to create things. Now that execution that you're doing is even less. How do you recalibrate to that this is usually one of the biggest hardest jumps that you see people do. The thing that I love, the thing that brought me into this industry is suddenly it's the thing that I'm not doing a whole lot of, how am I happy with that? How do I deal with that? How am I how am I okay with that, that's not what I want to do. I still want to create, so you have to recalibrate. And then it becomes bigger, then you're leading bigger teams, where happiness really then starts to become more about the progress of the team, the progress of the work, you know, the progress of their careers. I'm in a place in my career right now, where I think that some of my best work will never appear in my portfolio. I think some of my best work has been the people I've been able to help the careers I've been able to build the confidence I've been able to find the talent I've been able to push through a tough place that they were at, and it's getting happiness out of that. So it's just at every one of these things. ages, you readjust. And I think you also have to be honest with yourself to look at the stage you're in and look at the next stage, you're going to go to and say, am I going to Can I be happy in that next stage? It's why you see some people who are perfectly happy. And I think it's perfectly fine, that they will be production artists, the rest of their life, they just want to create that is the space where they feel the most happy, and that they cannot find happiness in any of those latter stages. And so for them, that's what they've decided. But what is it for you? Can you find happiness? Can you recalibrate? Can you do some of those things? Or do you get to that stage of starting to do leadership and decide that you're giving up too much, you just don't know how to be happy. And so that becomes a real challenge. But here again, it's up to you to do this work to look at this stuff. We'll come back to talk about that a bit more in a minute. Because I do think that a lot of this really comes down to you. And I think it also makes a good segue So we're gonna throw in one extra thing here. And this is going to be for all the leaders out there all the people who have to lead and manage other people. Because I think the other thing that you need to be aware of, is this process where at the end of the day, I've never heard anybody say this, but I really think this is true. leaders don't make happiness. Because as a leader, I can help somebody chart their career path. But I can't be responsible for their happiness, I can't be responsible for them figuring out what's next. They have to do that. The reality is, is that I don't want people who think I'm the one that's going to make them happy that if they come into my office, and we sit down, and we have a conversation about their career path about what's going on next, and I say great, what are the areas of opportunity? What do you want to be doing less of what do you want to be doing more of? And if their answer is, I don't know. You tell me. That is a huge, huge red flag problem. I will not I cannot I won't be responsible for their happiness. It's not fair to them. And it's not fair to me, they have to understand what they want. They have to understand what they need. I don't understand. I'm not them. I don't know what they need to be happy. And so the challenge is either to not accept that answer, go back and ask them to come back with what is it that they really want to do? What do they enjoy? What do they not enjoy? And in some cases, you still are not going to get people who are able to come back and answer that for you. Which means that you're left with a very tough road of just trying stuff and seeing what works. But the problem is with that road is that usually it's so long that people lose patience with it, and they leave the team. And it's one of those things where like, I, I see it coming all the time, because you have that conversation, you say what do you want? Where do we want to go? How can we help build your career and give you what you need? And they don't have an answer. And it's one of those things where in most cases, I just I know in that moment, it's a matter of time. They're looking to me to give them the answer. And I know that I'm going to be too slow, too clumsy, to unaware of kind of what they need to be able to deliver that in a timely fashion. And that ultimately, what they're going to do is to think that happiness means a new job. Well, the challenge there is going to be that that's not the case, because they're going to go to that new job. It'll be fun for a while, it'll distract them, it'll create new opportunities. But very quickly, they're going to come back to that same question of sitting in front of a boss saying, great, you've done what we thought you were gonna do whenever you came in, what's next what you want to be to do to be happy? They're not going to know the answer. The cycle continues. I think that a lot of cases you can see this manifests in resumes that people are usually in under two years jumping positions a lot. Either there's a personality problem, or they just simply don't understand what it is that they want. It's just something as a leader, I think you have to be aware of this, but you also you can't take responsibility for their happiness and their career growth. The end of the day, the reason why I talk so much in this podcast about how it's up to you Do the work is because too often I think people want to offload this on leadership that it's their problem. And I just think it's bullshit. You need to do the work, you have to be responsible for yourself. I'm just I'm not somebody who thinks that this stuff gets given to you, because the growth has to come from you, the insights has to come from you, the drive has to come from you. Because if it doesn't, it's not going to be a sustainable solution. You're not going to be happy with it. It's not going to be real. And but this is also the challenge is that those answers can only come from you because it requires you being honest with yourself, you being insightful with yourself to understand what's going on with this stuff. It's a tough conversation I had with people, there's no two ways around that. And it's sometimes something you just can't get people to understand that they have to do it. And that's why in many cases, when I have that talk, I'll try to tell people, whether you stay here a week or 10 years, this is a problem that you're going to have to solve. They're just certain things in your career that you're going to have to overcome and you can keep running away from it, but At a certain point, either you're going to start to become a problem because people will see that you've been in the same position for too long and you're not advancing, that's a red flag, they'll never tell you that. But that's what they're gonna think. And that's why you're, the interviewer will start to slow down, the opportunities will start to slow down, because they look at that stuff as a red flag. It's a tough conversation you've got to have with people and try to get them to see that. So with all that stuff being said, What can you do to keep yourself happy? What can what can you do about this stuff? Because I think we've gone through this landscape of creativity and happiness to understand what are the things that can affect it? What are the things that influence that? What are the things that you have to be responsible for? But what else can you do to improve this problem? The reality comes back to something that we just talked about. I think that the thing that you need to do, the thing that I've had to do is to sit down and actually say, What do I need to be happy? Do I know how to be happy? And for me, it really came down to the fact that for me, I know that you Even at its very best, its best days, in my best job on the best project. I'm probably at best getting 70% of what I need to be happy that I can go in there. I can feel like I'm accomplishing something, I'm doing something that's really cool. I'm, I feel like I'm making a difference. I'm putting that dent in the universe, and that's great. But at its best, it still isn't giving me everything of what I need. This is why I speak. It's why I teach. It's why I write it's why you are listening to this podcast. It's why I partner to do street art projects. And I cook and I do all kinds of other stuff. Because for me as a creative entity, it can't just be work. My day job is never going to give me everything that I need especially for the day job that I have. There are too many people The scale is too big. The control is too fleeting for me to really be able to kind of understand what I need to be happy. Like it sounds kind of good. I think some people think it sounds Goofy, but it's why probably five to six nights a week. I cook dinner. Because I go through a day of having to marshal a quite large team, they're taking on quite large problems. And very, very rarely, in the course of a day, can I start a problem and finish it and actually create something in a day. The scope of what I'm dealing with is just too big. So for me, if I'm not feeling like I'm finishing something, if I'm not feeling like I'm creating something that builds up on me it starts to take a toll. One of the things I've discovered is if I come home and cook something that helps alleviate some of that as goofy and as simple as that may sound, but it's because I can start something and finish it and then enjoy it all within the span of an hour. And I can do it for other people as well. But it is a full cycle creative process in one meal, but it took me to realize that even something that simple helps balance me out it helps give me a bit of more what I need to be happy. And then yes, there are bigger things like teaching or like doing the speaking or like working on side you know street art projects. are other stuff like that, that that sort of stuff also helps me It gives me a sense of control that I don't team seem to have at work. It lets me express myself without all the rules without all the oversight without all the politics and strategy and everything that goes into having a day job. I think that you need to do this too. You need to understand how much happiness do you get from your job, and it's at its best, not today, because today can be a great day today could be a bad day, but it's the aggregate of all of this stuff. How happy are you? Whenever you think about the best time in your career? How much of what you needed? Was it really giving you and then what do you need to do to get the rest outside of work? Is it coming home and cooking? is it doing a side project? is it doing freelance work? Is it working with your friends on something else? Is it donating your time to charity? Is it any of these other things where you can kind of feel like you're getting that sense of accomplishment you're getting the rest of what you need, but just understand the fact you're not going to get it from Your job, it's just not all going to come from that, like I said, even at its best, because you've got to keep the battery charged, you have to keep your career moving, you have to keep yourself inspired and to feel like you're doing something and that the output of all of this is adding up to something. So take that time and think about it. Over the next couple days, the next couple weeks, next couple months, even just notice yourself in its best moments, how happy are you? And how truly fulfilled do you feel? And if you're not, what are the other things that you're doing that help with that sort of thing? Because I think so much of all these creativity shows just comes back to this core thought of that taking the time to understand what you need, what is your process? How do you make this work for you? And this is also the biggest challenge and trying to teach this stuff. I think this is why people don't take on these subjects is because there are no magic bullets. I've said this before I'll say it again. This is why they will write self help books until the cows come home. There's just Not a magic bullet. So the last thing I want to talk about is another one of these things that I think that a lot of people don't necessarily understand. And it's a topic that I think does link into creativity. And it even links into kind of what do you need to be happy. And it's the subject of decision fatigue, in your creative process in whatever you're trying to do anything either being creating or being creative, that you can't make an infinite number of decisions every day. And whenever you make a decision, you expend mental energy. Your brain is basically a battery, like think about it like that. And every time you use it, it takes a little bit of the charge out of that, that if you make too many decisions, and too short of a timeframe, you significantly reduce your decision making ability. It's just a physiological fact. And what your capacity is for that varies wildly you, I mean, I've I've gone through a lot of different research, I've looked at a lot of this different stuff. The only kind of median number that I've ever come back to is 26. I don't know if that's actually true or not, but that in any given day, at any given time that you're awake, you get about 26 major decisions you get, I'm sure thousands 10s of thousands of smaller ones about when you How are you going to walk to go to the copier, you know, where do you want to go to lunch like those are smaller ones but big decisions, you only get a certain number of those every day. And that the battery in your brain wears down. That is literally what decision fatigue is. And this starts to express itself in some very interesting ways. And I think that there are some personalities who are very, very tuned in to this, that I think most of you will immediately know what it is I'm talking about, but maybe never understood why they did it. The two most famous people who I think really understood decision fatigue were Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. And the way that this comes out is that with Steve Jobs, he famously wore a black turtleneck jeans New Balance sneakers every single day. For Zuckerberg, it's the hoodie, the T shirt and the sneakers but it's basically the same thing for to them. And I think some people thought, Oh, they just want to be quirky or they just want to do whatever it is. But the reality is, is that what it really came down to was it was more important for them to really to go through and just to wear that same thing than to burn a decision. What were they going to wear that day? Steve would look at it and say, like, for him figuring out what was going what was right for the next version of the iPhone or for iTunes or something like that. That was where that decision needed to be made. It wasn't necessarily needed to be made of what he was going to wear that day. I think that this is subconsciously why most creatives wear black, because it's not a decision that subconsciously A lot of us a lot of our brains are trying to protect the decisions that we need to make. And so that for us, if it's black, I don't have to worry about color coordinating. I don't have to worry about if my shirt goes on my pants that goes with my shoes. It's all black or it's a standard black with jeans or something like that. You know? Yes, it's a joke. Yes, it's a stereotype. But I think that's where the stereotype is born out of is it's our brains intrinsically being aware of this and Trying to protect us from this decision fatigue, we have to respect the process, we have to respect our energy, we have to respect the tools that we've been given and what goes into this stuff. Maybe you're not somebody who wants to take it to that extreme that you wear the same thing every day. At the same time. Be aware of it. It's why sometimes, you know, I know some times you know, people who are really creative, sometimes it's something that even I'll do, pick where you want to go to lunch, pick what it is, you're going to wear, pick how it is you're going to get to work the night before, so that whenever I get up in the morning, I just simply stand up and I put on the clothes I picked out the night before. I've already made my lunch I made the decision about where I'm going to go to lunch. Like it sounds like these are goofy things that this may be overly precious, but they makes a difference. It adds up. And I think that it's one of those things where you just need to think about this stuff. It's weird. You know, I've even gone so far to try to protect my creativity and ultimately my happiness by doing things like I gave up drinking coffee and caffeine, which I think most people look at me like I just landed from the moon whenever I say that, but for me, I I was aware of the physiological change that caffeine was having that I would get very creative and very amped up, followed by really crashing after that, and really struggling to be creative whenever I came down off that caffeine high. And it was just something where I had decided I didn't want to go through that cycle anymore. And I gave it up. And it's a funny thing. Whenever you actually work with other creative people, they say, Oh, you want me grab me a cup of coffee and you say, I don't drink coffee. It's like you have an allergy. It's like, No, I just I do it. To try to help protect my creativity. They either look at you like you're, you're a complete freakin diva. Like you just have so gone off the deep end of like, you know, the overly precious creative, or they just look at you like you're crazy. It's the same. They look at me the same way because I've never actually had a red ball like, these are things like they look at you like you're crazy, like, I don't know, but what are the signs of decision fatigue? How do you know this is happening to you? I think that you know, this is obviously something's going to happen in the second part of the day and the second, the latter parts of your process or things like that. But there are times when you just really will start to avoid making decisions all together. You can't really make trade offs on decisions, you can't really kind of figure out, you know, what is it that we want to do. Or I think the other thing is that you lose self control over the things that you'd normally refrain from. It could be drinking alcohol, it could be eating whatever's in front of you. But you know, a lot of cases, it's just where that part of your brain that keeps something under control just kind of gives up. And you start to give into OCD, you start to give in to excesses, you start to do things like that. But a lot of it just really is where those decisions that were very easy in the early part of the day suddenly become much harder. So just keep an eye on it. Just see how you're doing and it will affect you differently on different days, like obviously a day whenever the I have the rare rare ability to sit in my office, to just create, to think to not have to be dealing with a ton of people not making a ton of decisions. I have a much stronger second half of my day. But if I am just you know, back to back meetings all single day, by the time that three o'clock meeting comes around, I'm not going to be kind of the sharpest knife in the drawer and it's just something that I'm aware of and try to be able to have come to grips with. So how do you find it? How do you get over this stuff? How do you understand that it is a real thing and that it really does your creativity. And I think that it just, it goes back to really think about what do you need? Why do you do this stuff? Do you create in the in the earlier part of the day? Do you not get into that fatigue? Do you really just be able to do this sort of stuff to limit your distractions to be able to do this sort of stuff so that you're at least aware of it. And like I said it, it affects everybody differently. You don't have to be Steve Jobs or Zuckerberg and wear the same thing every day. But just watch it and be aware of it. What we learned today, I think hopefully you can start to look at and understand the difference between creating and being creative and understand how those two parts are inextricably linked. But what are the challenges that come with each one of those that in often cases it may be? what surrounds that moment of creating, that is the place where you're really starting to struggle with happiness with fulfillment with The things that are going on that you need to take the time to just figure out what do you need to be happy? What do you want? What do you need? How much of that happiness? Are you getting out of your job? What are the things that you need to change to protect it? What are the things you need to add into your life? To keep you happy? and understand what is your role and responsibility in figuring that out that this is not going to be somebody else's problem. If you want to roll your eyes, if you want to, you know, tune out from this episode, that's fine. But the reality is that it's a problem that you're not going to be able to escape. And I think that because of that, you know, you also then have to understand how are these other stresses affecting you? How is decision fatigue affecting you? But how can you honestly just protect yourself from all these things because there is a lot just for the fact that this is Episode 27. And we're I mean, however many hours of content that is most of it spent about talking about creativity is that there's a lot that goes into being creative, much more than I think most people realize, and that the better you want to be at it, the more refined you want to be at it, the stronger you want. Be the bigger dent you want to put into the universe, the more of this stuff you've got to be aware of. On the one hand, you have to understand that these issues so you can keep evolving your career. But also, you can't let this stuff get to the place where it's like I said before, where you become this isolated diva who people just think like, oh, they're off in a dark room someplace painting a watercolor, their spirit animal wearing a beret, talking about, you know how precious creativity is. These are things that are real. But at the same point, we're part of a commercial enterprise. We're part of things where we need to produce we need to be part of teams and you can't become the diva who's like, Oh, well for my creativity. You know, my thing is like I said, I don't drink coffee. There are certain things that I do most of those I don't advertise to people coffee is probably the most public one. But there's a lot of that stuff where it's just quietly the stuff that I do to try to protect my headspace my sanity, my drive, my goals, my ultimately my happiness. It is only up to me, nobody else. Nobody else understands what I'm doing. Through, nobody else understands how to fix it. And if I'm going to sit around waiting for somebody else to write in on their big white horse to be able to save me, I'm gonna be waiting a really long damn time. Because it's up to us. It's up to us to put in the time to put in the work to figure this stuff out. We're the ones that are creative and creative is a unique gift for every person. And as a result is a unique problem for every person. If you want to find out about the shownotes I've actually gone through I've put in much more extensive show notes for each one of these shows. If you want to go through and if you want to see those if you want to listen to some of the past episodes see some of the articles I've written I really put a lot of time in in terms of like beefing up this part of the my website. You can always head over to podcast dot Stephen Gates calm Steven is still STP he n.com You can find all the old shows and all this stuff. Just go to episodes and you'll see them all listed out there. As always, the only currency I ever asked for is if you have just a few seconds, head over to iTunes, leave a review. If you're feeling like you just have literally a few seconds Go and click on the stars. If you're feeling a little bit more giving, go in and just write a review, it brings a lot more people to the show, it really does help. It's the only currency I ever asked for some always incredibly appreciative of that. If you want to talk about this, if you want to talk about anything else, if you want to see the articles that I'm reading, get into some of the new updates, head over to the Facebook page, just go to Facebook search The Crazy One podcast like that page, because there's a lot of other material that I'm sharing, as I'm finding it as there's some thoughts there interacting with people answering questions. So that's the place to have all that going on. As always, the boys down illegal want me to remind you that all the views here are my own. They don't represent any of my current or former employers. This is just me out here with my own thoughts. And finally, I say it every time because I mean it every time. But thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only real luxury that we have. And I'm always incredibly humbled that you want to spend any of it with me, until we're back with the next episode and until we can cover what's new in design, leadership and creativity. Stay crazy