How Much Do You Identify With Your Job?

Ever heard of the term Grown-Up Paradox?

The Grown-Up Paradox is the fight between following the rules like an adult should, and disobeying the rules like an adult can.

It’s the balance between being a responsible human and giving voice to what makes you unique.

As kids we’re taught to think and behave a certain way and that by following the rules, we’ll fit and get rewarded.

That’s true.

Following the rules is probably what has prevented us all to die of multiple ulcers trying to organize daily chaos or get hit by a car. Knowing and understanding the rules at play in our world is essential to survive.

But there’s a limit to that truth.

Because for one human who strives following the rules in place, there are millions who barely make it work.

Rules are generalities set to contain a group. They will contain the group mindset within you. But what about the rest of you? What about the things that are inside you and that make you, you?

I’m not talking about you becoming a shepherd, opening a pottery shop on Etsy, or living underground with a fringe group who burns cars.

I’m not talking about trashing everything you’ve built so far to become a shepherd. I am talking about self-expression. As known as creativity.

I’m talking about you cultivating the you-thing that gives your life a unique and empowering flavor.

It’s not about more, it’s about tastier.

Do you remember the first time one of your friend, peer or colleague willingly disobeyed the rules and got acclaimed for their innovative spirit?

Do you remember the wtf, it’s not fair?! moment it triggered in the room?

Say hi to the Grown Up Paradox.

As a functioning grown-up living in the 21st century, you’re asked to be responsible. But if you want to strive you need to be disruptive.

You need to produce results but it would be great if you could also be creative and bring fresh ideas to the table.

These mixed messages are confusing. The temptation is to follow the rules, even when they don’t make sense and to lose yourself in the job.

To stop taking holidays, to stay as long as the others at the office, to sleep less to fit everything you want to do in 24h…

The risk? Losing your flavor (and going into full burnout).

Arianna Huffington says it best: “I think the minute we completely identify with our jobs, we lose our ability to take risks, to be more detached from what we are doing because very often if we’re trying to be creative and doing new things, you have no guarantees. And anytime you are trying to be completely secured, and do only the things that are guaranteed to succeed, whatever they might mean, you are not going to do very creative things.”

How much do you identify with your job? Is there room left for risks and errors?

Take a risk now. Do something foolish and seemingly unproductive. Reconnect with the joy of creating.

If you have access to a pen and a paper (lol), draw us a sheep. Give it a name. Possibly an age and a dream job. And share it.

Why? Because it will make you smile, connect with others through something you created and it will force you to let (your sheep) go.

If you want to see my sheep check Instagram or Facebook Page. Tag us so we can see yours!

And if you want to bend the rules I gave, please do.

PS: if you feel this is ridiculous and an insult to my brain… DRAW A SHEEP coz it’s definitely time to loosen up ❤

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If you’ve enjoyed this article, consider clapping!

Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.

The Grown-Up Paradox was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Witnessing someone’s creativity is a magical moment. It’s an opportunity to look at things another way and to open up to new possibilities.

And a small gesture by a stranger can have unexpected ripple effects.

And what’s even better now is that a stranger on another continent can create magic that will ripple through the continents thanks to the non-less magical Internet.

Here are some of my favorites recent creative outbursts:

Right now the world is more and more complex, intense and confusing. Will robots replace us in 10 years? Are we all going to disappear with a mushroom blast? Is the economy going to crash again? What world are we offering to our children?

Right now the world is asking us where we stand for our planet, our future, and our kids.

We need new solutions, new ideas, new imaginations. We need everyone to use their capacity to dream, innovate, and see from a perspective that will offer another way.

We need everyone to activate their creativity.

Creativity is the capacity to see things slightly differently than others and being able to share that vision back with the world.

We all naturally perceive things from a slightly different angle but over the years we’ve learned to erase those edges and focus on the middle line, the one that overlaps with everybody else.

You can tune back with your creative muscle, your edges and your slightly different way to see the world.

That’s what we offer with 10.28 Detox™. The first round starts this Monday, enrollment closes in 24h.

Join 10.28 Detox™

See you on the other side.

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If you’ve enjoyed this article, consider clapping!

Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.

These Guys are No Artists was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

how to find your Scenius (wherever you live)

When looking back at History there are dozens and dozens of stories about specific time periods where an uncanny number of creative spirits gathered within the same school, street, building, found each other and imagined on a much larger scale that they could have alone.

There is no one leader but rather mutual influences, respect, and possibly appreciation. Every member has a voice, overlapping and yet adding something different. Sometimes there are fights, sometimes they depart, but for a moment in time, their hearts pulse at the same rate and collectively they produce a bigger vibration than they would have alone.

They don’t necessarily collaborate on pieces together, but they gather around the same fireplace, they know of each other’s presence and work, and it affects what they absorb and share back.

It’s Coppola, Lucas, Scorsese, Kubrick, De Palma…

Smith, Mapplethorpe, Hendrix, Joplin, Morrisson…

De Beauvoir, Sartre, Camus, Picasso, Dali, Vian…

I grew up on these stories and it was a big part of what I dreamed about when I decided to move to Paris, and then to Los Angeles. Finding my people, the ones who would make me a better creative, the ones who would challenge me, surprise me, and push me.

This gathering of minds is what Brian Eno calls a scenius, as opposed to a genius. Instead of having one person, one filmmaker, one genius at the top of a pyramid ruling others, you have a gathering of creatives sharing and expanding each other’s abilities.

Here is Eno’s definition: “Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.”

That’s great, but I live in the middle of nowhere…

Up until 15 years ago, we were not equal when it came to community building. Being an introvert was a death sentence, and living in the middle of nowhere or simply in the wrong country meant you were to deal with your dreams, hopes, and projects on your own.

But today, you don’t have to live in California, Manhattan or Paris to find your people. You don’t even have to live in the same town or street of your people.

Look at Austin Kleon, Lisa Congdon, Wendy MacNaughton, Maria Popova, Oliver Jeffers, Amanda Palmer… Tim Ferriss, Ryan Holiday, Chase Jarvis, Seth Godin, Ramit Sethi, Kevin Kelly… Casey Neistat, Jerome Jarre, Rudy Mancuso, JR, Agnes Varda…

They found each other, they follow each other, they sometimes see each other.

You might have noticed that oftentimes, two people you follow for different reasons end up knowing each other. You had no clue and yet it makes perfect sense.

Find Your Scenius

There is one common factor between all these names, whether from the 70s or today, whether punk poets, philosophers, filmmakers, writers or marketing strategists: they are makers.

They are deeply connected to their creative muscle, they produce on a regular if not daily basis, they test, they fail, they take risks, they explore, THEY CREATE and THEY SHARE.

By being consistent and relentless in their creative pursuit, they are found, they are heard and they find their scenius. You can’t be part of a scenius if once you’re done reading this article, you enter a wishful thinking mode.

I wish I knew like-minded people to make my film…

I wish I was born in America and had freedom of speech…

I wish I had money to support my dreams…

It’s just not happening. You can’t wait to find your people to create and share. Because to find your people, you need to know who you are. To know who you are, you need to do the work, dig deep, explore, take risks. Be a creative adventurer.

So, what now?

Easier said than done, I know. But there are ways. You can commit to create and share daily, that’s what creative challenges are for. While you create, you can start a blog, open social media accounts, interact with others online. All those solutions are valid and free ways to make it happen.

They are all ways I have used to find my creative community even though I lived for 5 years as a digital nomad, with low income and zero natural network. And by the way, in case it wasn’t clear until now, finding your scenius is not finding how to be a star, famous or rich. It’s about finding your people, the one that help you emulate, create and go beyond your pre-supposed limits.

If you know who you are and what you need to say, if your creativity is only asking to get out, I urge you to use these tools, to take risks, create and share. Today more than ever singular voices need to rise in an authentic way and people need to find their scenius.

But if you don’t know where to start, if you feel exhausted or overwhelmed, if you’re dying to connect with your inner voice but feel too ashamed, too old, too poor, too business oriented, too conformist, too different, in other words, if you feel that you need a push, a safe place, a hand to hold the light while you go inside and explore, I can offer you something.

Making Time, Taking Risks, Sharing (Safely)

That’s what Creativity is about. Making time, taking risks, and sharing.

I can offer you these three elements.

It’s a Creative Detox.

A journey within to bring out what you need to say.
A program to make creativity part of your routine so you can be who you need to be to find your people and share what matters to you.

You need to take 10 minutes per day for 28 days. 10 minutes sounds ridiculous and yet, if you take this train, you’ll be surprised to realize how hard it can be to consistently show up and create for 10 minutes. (If you’ve tried meditation, you might be familiar with this battle).

You can be alone. You can live anywhere. You can be a talent manager or a barista/filmmaker in Dubaï or in Spain. Your desire to activate your creativity is the only criteria.

You don’t need to know how to draw. You don’t need to know how to make films.

This is not about Art, this is about Creativity. The thing that makes you unique, the perspective you have on the world you and I live in, and the feelings you and I feel.

And you can share in a private community only composed of people who are taking the same risks than you do and committed to the same thing: activating their creative muscle, finding their voice, taking risks, sharing it.

Join 10.28 Detox.

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If you’ve enjoyed this article, consider clapping!

Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.

How come they all know each other?! was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Mindset, process and tools to reach your goals over and over again

I always want more time. More time to work on my projects, to spend with my parents, my siblings, my friends, my partner, but also to practice yoga, meditate, read books, watch films, binge shows, cook healthy, travel and sleep 8 hours. Mmm…

For years I was frustrated to only have 24 hours per day and always felt behind. And then I realized it was up to me to change my story and that instead of dreaming of having more time, I could focus on making the best out of the time I actually had daily. It turned out when you consistently spend your time mindfully, 24h X 365 is quite a lot of time. The quote that sums it up for me:

We overestimate what we can accomplish in a day, but underestimate what we can accomplish in a year.

I first read it on Chris Guillebeau’s site and it’s flipped the script for me.

Since January 1st, 2012, I’ve used as little time as possible to solely make money, usually taking gigs as a freelance editor and filmmaker and focused on creating a life I love, making things I love. (A fluid definition, more on that below.)

In the last six years, I have
– started mentorless.com from scratch, knowing absolutely nothing about blogging
– developed my social media and built a weekly newsletter with over 12,000 readers
– written and published 1 graphic novel (the second one heads to printing today!)
– created 2 eBooks on screenwriting
– have completed 7 creative challenges
– wrote 5 songs lyrics for two bands
– created 20 tappable stories
– started drawing and selling my work
– created an interactive animation, a short film, 100 Instagram videos and 35 videos on YouTube
– wrote a feature screenplay, found a producer and is actively developing my first feature
– co-founded Activate Creativity, an online company dedicated to making creativity a daily habit in people’s lives again
– became a certified yoga teacher

As more and more readers have been emailing, asking how I manage to stay focused and deliver over time, I thought I would share how I go for it.

The order for me to make it work not just for a week, a month or a year, but for over a decade (it all started well before 2012) is :

1. Determine your Mindset then
2. Determine your Process then
3. Determine the Tools you need

All three parts are fluid, but they move at different speed and depth. Changing my mindset takes much more work, while I can use dozens of tools and change them within a day. So being crystal clear on my mindset is much more important and will give direction to the whole ship. (Even though I am aware reading about tools is more attractive. Sorry.)

Step 1: Determine Your Mindset

You can learn all the tricks in the world to optimize your time if you don’t know what you want and why you want it, you will feel empty inside even though you accomplish stuff, and you’ll likely abandon sooner or later.

1 ) Know what you REALLY need as opposed to what you THINK you need

The difference between what you think you need and what you really need is that the first is a theory of what you believe will make you happy, while the other is a deep, profound and urgent need. If this one is not fulfilled, you feel depressed. In my case, I want it all so I like to think I need it all. But if I can only have one thing, what I really need is to create. It’s a weird need, but it’s my need.

If I don’t create daily I start feeling moody, I am agitated and everything turns gray.

My need to create takes over my potential needs of being rich, famous, recognized, partying, resting etc. I’d love to be rich, I think my life would be easier. But I’m not actively working toward that goal because what I really need is to create.

All my choices are geared toward that real need. And turns out the secondary things I also want are now blossoming from me hitting my main goal as often as possible.

Your central need will change. When I was 19, my main need was to leave my hometown. At 25, it was to become a filmmaker. At 30, it was to create. Today it is still to create, but all the while leading a balanced and rich life. Who knows what 40 will bring.

2 ) Be clear about what money means to you

We live in a world obsessed with money. Becoming a creative, a filmmaker, a storyteller, an artist is basically heading away from money. At least for a while. It takes time to make money from one’s creativity.

I am a bit of a hardcore person when it comes to money. I recognize we need money to live, but I don’t want money to dictate my life. I’ve lived as a digital nomad for 5 years, I’m good at living well and happily on little (I’ve lived with as little as $5,000 for a year), I rarely drink alcohol (one of the highest budget of many people between 20 and 50) and I don’t like to buy things (besides books, notebooks, pencils etc).

That being said, having little money comes with a cost: your friends with ‘normal’ lives and climbing the social ladder have expectations you can’t meet. You need broad shoulders and a small ego because money is the one thing that will derail your focus the most easily. The possibility of making good money can make you go on a tangent that never ends. Read Neil Gaiman’s advice for a way to stay focused on your goal. I’d say 95% of the people I know who started as filmmakers gave up because of financial needs.

The money topic could take 10,000 words, but for now, know how important money is for you, and adjust your expectations, goals, and dreams accordingly. The more objects you need to feel happy, the smaller your window of opportunity to last. Which means you should aim for social success and hit films. As long as you’re clear and fine with it, it’s all good.

3 ) Be an Old-Schooler

My word means something to me. Politeness and kindness are important to me but I’m not afraid to go for a fight when I believe it’s important. Honour, Loyalty, Morality are not just in Game of Thrones. Thinking where you stand on the spectrum of each of these values is essential.

I believe that the reason why many people fail at simply doing what they’re saying they will is because they’ve lost connection with the power of their words.

Yes, it’s a subjective choice. What I find moral you might find immoral. What I consider honor you might dismiss as silliness.
Yes, it’s a fiction. As we’ve been painfully discovering, we live in a world where there are no consequences for anyone in power who lies. Words have lost their power in the political and business world, and there’s a new narrative that says “As long as you’re powerful, you can lie as much as you want, there will be no consequences. So focus on becoming powerful instead of doing the (much harder) work of being aligned with your words.”

I believe we should focus on being aligned between what we think, what we say and what we do. If you feel fractured inside, there’s a chance there’s a misalignment here. Being an Old-Schooler means reconnecting with what our ancestors, women, and men used before 100 pages legal contracts with asterisks: their words.

Step 2: Determine The Process

Knowing what you need will give you a direction and a vision, but then the hard part begins: running, walking, and possibly crawling toward your goal every single day.

That’s where a lot of people quit because you’re pretty much running an endless marathon called “be-the-CEO-of-your-life-until-you-die” when we’ve been raised to think the story ends when we kiss the charming prince/princess.

I love deciding what I’m going to do each day and being the CEO of my life but I acknowledge it’s scary and not an easy thing to do, especially if you’re used to the numbing but more comfortable mindset of following directions.

Here is how I go from theory to practice:

1) Constant Motion

I “work” every day. Let me rephrase this: I live my life every day. I really wish there was a better word than “work” but “play” doesn’t cut it either for me because come on, it’s not all joy and fun. But it’s my choice. Every day I wake up, I look at what I have to do, I look at what I want to do, I try to find a sweet spot between the two and I go for it

I’ve dropped the concept of weekends, weekdays or holidays. I don’t need holidays or weekends to take a break from my life. I might need to rest, stay in silence, spend time in nature, or see people I love, but it’s not a vacation from my life, it’s a different moment in a life that reads like a soundwave. It goes up and down all the time and it’s in constant motion.

If you want to make progress you need to accomplish things every day. Even if it’s the tiniest thing such as cleaning your desktop, backing up your computer, emailing Y or Z. Every day you should be crossing one thing on the never ending lists of things to do to hit your need and be in constant motion. If you’re building a road leading to a mysterious destination, you need to build that road.

If you have the mindset, you’ll show up.

2 ) Multiple Projects

For me, the only way to be in constant motion is to have multiple projects on different mediums and at different stages. I can’t write 2,000 words every day, or edit every day, or draw every day, or blog every day. There is nothing I want to do every day. Besides eating. (And that’s not even a joke)

I currently have 20 open projects I can choose from. Some have deadlines, some don’t. Some have been pending for 2 years and move slowly, some were born last week and need to be completed in a few days. Their scale and scope vary.

I tend to go overboard with the number of projects I handle and I can’t help but come up with new ones all the time. Sometimes I wish I was more focused and could have one big passion as I realized it could go faster for this one thing. That’s my personality, I won’t buy another one.

Even if you have only one passion such as filmmaking or writing or making music, within that field you should have the option to pick between several projects at different stages. Because when it comes to creativity, and even more so when it comes to collaborative creativity, the road is rarely linear. You know when you start, but you’re probably dead wrong about when you’ll be done. To avoid burnout and depression, make sure you have a variety of toys to play with.

3 ) Incremental Steps

The multiple projects aspect is only possible if you go through incremental steps. You need to start with one thing and repeat it enough times so it takes less time for you to do it, which means you get some more time and brain space to add something new.

Let’s say you want to develop your presence on the social media. Pick one social media that ‘talks’ to you the most and focus on developing this account. I started with Twitter in 2010 and for a while spent a lot of time on it, which helped me grow my followers and brought readers to my site. Then I added a Facebook Page, and a Pinterest. Nowadays I barely spend time Social Media besides Instagram that I use to create, but I have spent enough time on them so I know exactly how to use very little time to communicate with them.

Step 3: Determine the Tools

I use a lot of tools to support my process, and those tools change organically as my projects and goals change. I wrote about how I take and organize my notes and ideas, below I’m sharing three tools that have entered my life within the last year as the projects I’ve taken on are becoming more ambitious and made a massive difference in my productivity.

1) Bullet Journal

I’ve always had a notebook where I would write down ideas and collect interestingness, and papers to scribble daily to-do lists on. (I’ve tried apps, but my brain needs its quota of analog connection).

Since January of this year, I’ve had a bullet journal and it’s been like finally having a custom-design office for my brain. I used the official bullet journal website as an inspiration to create my own bullet journal. A whole movement has blossomed out of this concept, and a lot of people are spending an impressive chunk of times creating beautiful objects to track about everything.

I quickly decided I would not fetishize my bullet journal. It’s here to help me hit my goals. I use a cheap school notebook and regular pens. I’ve mentioned about the benefits of having a bullet journal and some of you asked about how I organize it, so here we go:

a) I NUMBER MY PAGES:
This only make sense if you have an Index.

b) I CREATE AN INDEX:
The Index corresponds to the first two pages of my notebook, left empty. As I go through my days, weeks and months, I might scribble down an idea, a quote, an emotion, a data in the margin of my daily to-do list that I want to remember.

On March 3rd, I had an idea for my film, In 5 Years. I wrote down the idea under the March 3rd to-do list, I created a category named ‘I5Y’ in my index section, and under it, I wrote the page number (58). So whenever I want to remember all the ideas I had in the last 4 months about In 5 Years, I’ll just open my Index, look at the page numbers, and go directly there to rediscover my scribbles.

The categories make their way naturally as time passes. I don’t pressure myself about it, if I want to store a data, I create a category.

Between January and April, I created 15 categories such as Creative Accident, Activate Creativity, In 5 years, FCPX, Ideas, Quotes, !!, ❤, :(

c ) I HAVE A MONTHLY TRACKER
The Monthly Tracker is a graph where I track everything that interests me, either because I want to make sure I’m doing it, or because I want to see how I’m doing on a particular topic.

On the vertical left column, I write down everything I want to track and on a horizontal top column I write every day of the months. (see bottom left picture in the top image)

I currently track 23 ‘things’, such as sleep, meditation, yoga, no spending, writing, reading, drawing, creating, travel etc.

The best way to build your list is to ask yourself what matters to you or what you are curious to know more about. And guess what? The things you’ll feel compelled to track will change over time.

d) I LIST ALL MY PROJECTS
Every month I have a page named “(MONTH) TASKS” where I list absolutely every single projects I would love to do in a perfect world. Some I have to, some I want to. Some are not related to creativity and some are.

This helps me keep an overview of everything I am heading toward. Every month I manage to cross some, and the others are pushed to the next month. The list usually starts with 10 items and ends twice the size as new items arrive.

2 ) I use a Priority Scale

I’ve realized that I tend to go for bonus projects that are often lighter and feel more creative when I should really be focusing on the pressing matters.

To make sure I am staying on track with harder projects and to avoid bullshitting my own brain I’m now using a priority scale. Once again a simple, free and analog tool that looks like that:

3 ) I Turn Off Notifications

I’m like everybody else, I get easily distracted. I actually seek distraction. While writing this article I’ve opened my Instagram for absolutely no reason at least three times. It might sound like an innocent number, but that’s the tip of a sad iceberg.

I have been on a decluttering path for a few years now and one of the ways to give space and time to my brain is to turn off as many notifications as I can. On my phone, I only receive notifications about a handful of people I chose to follow closely. (And yes, you guessed it, this list changes as my interests change).

I don’t let Facebook open on my computer. I’ve turned off all email notifications and sounds that can give me one more reason to abandon what requires deep work. This is one of the most efficient ways to stay focused. Spend half an hour going through the settings of all your apps, it works wonder.

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I realize this is a long post, and the truth is, I’ve left many points on the side. There is one last thing I also find essential to stay focus and manage time efficiently:

INDULGE YOURSELF

It cannot only be work, work, work. Even if you love what you’re doing, like I do, you need not only to cut yourself some slack but also to reward yourself. Rewards can be simple pleasures ( a good meal, playing a game, buying a book, watching a movie, partying etc.) but ultimately, we live today and now, so we better enjoy the ride.

I hope you found this helpful. I’d love to hear from you, what’s your mindset, process, and tools to achieve your goal(s). Let me know below!

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If you’ve enjoyed this article, consider clapping!

Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.

How I Stay Focused and Manage My Time was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Flash news, robots are going to take our jobs. Any job that can be automatized will be and by 2020 (i.e. in three years from now), 5 million jobs will be replaced by A.I. in the U.S. only.

Robots don’t complain, they don’t get tired, they don’t get sick, they don’t get pregnant, they don’t ask for raise. We are not strong competition.

There’s a good news, though: robots won’t be able to do everything.

Futurist Kevin Kelly summed it up:

“Humans are going to be very good at asking questions, be creative and offer experience. Everything linked to productivity and efficiency will go to robots.”

• Asking questions
• Be creative
• Offer experience

This is where we will always make a difference.

If we put our heart and mind to cultivating these three skills, we will always be ahead of robots.

Robots are coming. But we are not interested in letting that news stop us from expanding, growing and cultivating what makes us humans.

Every Monday, you can start a CREATIVE Detox. You can find ideas, gain energy and focus, and use your voice.

Stay ahead of Robots.

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If you’ve enjoyed this article, consider clapping!

Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.

Robots are going to take our jobs, unless… was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Have you also noticed that every filmmaker has become an “award-winning” one on Twitter and Instagram?

What happened?

The Internet; letting you know about your friend that is doing better than you. And now everyone feels the need to claim they are award-winning filmmakers too!

School Award? It works. Audience Award from an obscure film festival that was packed with your friends and family? I’ll take it! Online Award won on a random voting system? Give me that one!

Let’s face it, we live in a world where people love to hear about your failures once you’ve succeeded. They don’t want to know how hard it is now. They don’t care! (And why should they?)

We are under the constant pressure of having something to show for ourselves, something that our banker friend can understand. Either you have money or you are famous. If your banker friend hasn’t seen your film, tell him you’ve won an Award, it will put his mind to ease when he’ll mention to his other friends that you’re a filmmaker. Make him look good!

The Internet has become a curse and a blessing for us, filmmakers. Every day a new site, a new festival a new streaming service to showcase our work. But every day also, thousands of new voices, probably younger, probably with more time on their hands, fewer mortgages, and a higher capacity to adapt to new technologies, flood the Internet with their work and their voice.

In other words: yes, it’s easier to create a story, but you better have a unique way to say what you want to say to cut through the noise.

There’s a running joke I’ve been hearing a lot since I’ve started my own company: filmmakers don’t spend money. And I think it’s true. We’re so used to living and fighting DIY-style that we’ve learned not to spend unless it’s for gear or festival fees. Maybe.

My blog mentorless.com is built on the free knowledge I’ve curated over the last six years, so I know.

But I also know that there comes a time when investing in your creativity becomes a necessity, especially when you’ve hit the burnout wall.

You might not call it “a burnout”, but if you’ve been struggling to do the thing that you used to do without thinking twice (creating), even though it’s now supposed to be your full-time occupation, you’ve probably hit that wall.

And once you’ve hit that wall, things can spiral down pretty quickly.

And if you lose the connection to your inner creative voice, you’re f*cked.

Binge watching video-essays, reading articles, watching movies and writing screenplays are great things to do for filmmakers.

But to “write about what you know” you better be connected to who you are, what you have to say, and how to say it in your unique way.

Those things you can’t learn in a video-essay.

It’s with all these considerations in mind that we have created 10.28 Detox™.

It’s an exploration within to gain focus and energy, find ideas, and use your voice. For 10 minutes per day for 28 days, you will collect seeds of ideas and stretch your creative muscle.

You will also be encouraged to fail. Because that’s when unique ideas and voices come out. Trying hard and failing hard.

You brush your teeth every day, use your creative muscle every day.

Link

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Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.

When did everyone become an award-winning filmmaker? was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Tom is a writer and he thinks I am an idiot. He saw a visual on my site that said “invest on your creativity” instead of “invest in” so he emailed me:

Tom used a shaming technique to make his point. His point being: I have mastered the English language and I am determined to humiliate all the idiots who don’t get it right.

Did Tom’s strategy to make me feel like shit work? Nope.

I thanked him for pointing out my mistake, I learned and changed the visual:

and then I told him he should not join our creative workshop.

Don’t get me wrong: I take no pleasure in making mistakes. Like everybody else, when I do something, I give it my best. And when I realize I made mistakes, I feel frustrated and bad. For a short while.

Because I take great pleasure in learning and growing. And the thing is: you can’t learn anything if you don’t accept that you need to learn something.

The reason why I told Tom he shouldn’t join 10.28 Detox™ is not because he shamed me instead of being kind. It’s because Tom doesn’t want to learn, he wants to get it right. And then tell everybody else who doesn’t that they are fucking idiots, unlike him.

The trouble is: creativity is not an ego contest. Creativity is about making tons of mistakes. It’s about fooling around, feeling it’s going nowhere and staying humble while the learning curve follows its mysterious path.

In 10.28 Detox™, we send people a practical exercise daily with a limited amount of time (10 minutes) to complete it. We create constraints that force them to stop “before it’s ready”, and then we ask them to share what they’ve done with the community.

Ego has no space in our workshop. We have participants from different countries for whom English is not their first language. (Just like us by the way, we are French.) It takes a high amount of courage to enroll in a creative workshop in a language that is not your own. We celebrate courage and risk taking, not ego-driven results.

I know, I know, we live in a world that is all about results. Money results: make $1,000 per month on the side now! Power results: Outsource your work to India while you spend your days on a Beach sipping Mojitos! Sorry, this is not the game we play.

We offer you to become you. Find out what you have to say, and how you want to say it. We offer you to reconnect with your creativity.

Because we believe the world is a better place when people are fully expressed not when they are shut down by people who want you to get it right before you say anything.

Diversity and differences are not a threat, they are our strength. Let’s cultivate them.

So, if somebody tries to shame you because you made a mistake, remember that creativity embraces mistakes. It’s out of them that come the most unexpected growth.

Every Monday, we embark on a journey that won’t be perfect. A journey into the creative unknown. Join us.

—

If you’ve enjoyed this article, consider clapping!

Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.

Do It Pisses You Off When I Make Mistakes? was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I have recently finished my second 30-days Creative Challenge: 1 minute of music per day shot on video and shared on Facebook.

As a Consultant in Guest Experience, I am always excited to measure the impact of things and I was wondering how to measure the impact of the 30 days of effort I have sustained to complete my Creative Challenge?

After reflecting with people I trust and love, I found an unusual and exciting way for everybody to measure the impact of new initiatives involving a sustained effort — in my case to create and share for 30 days: the number of Gifts you got from your challenge.

To give you an idea on what you could get from jumping into a Creative Challenge, here are some of the gifts I would not have received without my #1minofmusic 30 days experience.

GIFT #1 — Self-confidence boost: committing and keeping my commitment

I had already taken a Creative Challenge in September 2016 and I did not fail a single day. But despite the success of this first jump in the void, I thought I would not be capable to do it another time.

This second Creative Challenge proved me I could do it twice and it strengthened my self-confidence.

GIFT #2 — Reflecting with others

I have been an amateur musician for over 2 decades. Right after I finished the #1minofmusic challenge, my sense of accomplishment was not that strong and I decided to discuss it with a few people.

I rapidly realised that I had accomplished much more than I thought and the way I was looking at the past 30 days of my life changed.

Reflecting with others after an effort, a commitment, a finished task or a painful event is the key to see things that were hidden and move forward more powerfully.

GIFT #3 — Doing things for the first time

I played music with my two sons (7 and 5) for the very first time. It was an emotional moment. Louis was at the drums and Oscar played piano bravely next to me.

GIFT #4 — Re-activating relationships and generating new interactions

During the 30 days of my challenge, I have received comments from old friends I had not interacted with for a long time and discovered new people who gave me energy along the way.

GIFT #5 — Inspiring others to take action

On February 4, a gentleman who I had seen a few times at friends’ places and who connected with me recently sent a private message where he recorded himself playing piano to mirror the opposite of the weather outside: it was raining and he played Summertime.

I had not anticipated that my challenge would be a gentle push for someone to sit at his piano and share his musical mood of the day. What a gift.

I also have my sister Nathalie who, right after I published my first video, decided to jump into a 30 days Creative Challenge because she felt inspired by mine. Not only inspiring her was a source of pride and joy (she is usually pushing me to dare doing things in my life) but we also did our challenges in parallel and that was an awesome feeling.

Check Nathalie’s full challenge here

GIFT #6 — Breaking barriers of the past

Despite my efforts, I am still very concerned with what people think of me and only tend to publish content that makes me shine and serve my image.

The challenge I took meant that some exercises or songs I would choose would not be perfect unless I spent hours each day doing several takes. It was no possible and I rapidly had to make a choice: do I publish non-perfect content or do I drop my Creative Challenge?

I chose the first option. It was liberating and it has allowed me to break a barrier of the past: being ok to share things that are not perfect and drop my focus on giving a beautiful and clean image of myself to others.

GIFT #7 — Sharing melodies that I composed

I have never considered myself as a musician because I have not really composed anything ‘serious’.

This Creative Challenge made me realise that I had done a few things in my past and that I could create melodies that were, in fact, pretty pleasant to hear.

After sharing some of my creations, I now feel excited to create more.

Funnily enough, the first and the last #1minofmusic were creations :). Here they are:

GIFT #8 — Acknowledging my musical capabilities

After 30 days, looking back at the videos, I saw something I never really did before: I play a good amount of instruments!

This Creative Challenge changed the way I see my musical capabilities and I authorised myself to be content with my talent: piano, guitar, ukulele, bass, voice.

Check this Ukulele video:

GIFT #9 — Playing in 7 places in the world

When I took my Creative Challenge on January 2, I did not anticipate that the month of January was packed with trips.

Fortunately I had my new travel bass with me and played in Beirut (Lebanon), Dubai (UAE), Fujairah (UAE), Marrakesh (Morroco), Paris (France), Lille (France) and Geneva (Switzerland).

Here is one from Geneva!

There are 2 things that come to my mind at the end of this article:

1- It is possible to measure new initiatives in your life with the number of gifts you got from them.

2- Keeping your promise to create during any other period of time (7 days, 30 days or more) will disrupt your daily life and make you explore dimensions you did not expect.

9 Gifts for 30 days of commitment. Pretty awesome. I am already thinking of my next Creative Challenge…

Check here how to choose a Creative Challenge that works for you.

—

Joe Sejean is a co-founder of Activate Creativity, a platform that helps people reconnect, stretch and nurture their creativity.

10.28 Detox™ is a CREATIVE Detox that takes 10 minutes per day, for 28 days. It starts every Monday.

How To Measure The Impact Of Your Creative Challenge was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Taking on a Creative Challenge is a great way to heal from a burnout but it can backfire if defined poorly.

Everything is in the name: it’s a challenge. It will prove difficult and will take you to unexpected -and sometimes dark- places. And it’s here to challenge one specific element: your creativity.

Since 2013 I’ve completed 6 creative challenges: one 365 days, two 100 days, one 60 days, one 10 days and I just finished a 30 days challenge to kickstart 2017.

The reason why I keep taking on creative challenges is because each challenge helps me make jumps in my capacity to take risks, my self-confidence, my stamina, my skills and yes, my creativity.

Over the past four years I’ve also learned from each challenge what works well, and what doesn’t.

In 2013 I picked my first creative challenge without giving it much thinking. I was lucky enough to have framed it rather precisely (one timelapse a day for 365 days), but I was lacking one major factor: the sharing component. Every day I would record a timelapse and then sit on it until the year was done, and it’s only in January 2014 that I shared the finished video. For any random project that might have been fine, but for a creative challenge, as I’ve learned with practice, sharing daily is essential.

This lesson is one of the many I’ve learned from my mistakes, and from seeing others take on creative challenges only to abandon them midcourse (or even before that). Last year, when I started my second 100 days creative challenge, I had 20 friends starting along. We were 4 to finish.

Poorly picking a creative challenge is a missed opportunity to strengthen your creative muscle. But more serious than null benefits, are negative ones.

If you feel creatively fragile when you decide to start a creative challenge to get back on the horse, failing to complete one can reinforce the voice in your head saying you can’t create.

Just like ingredients to create a dish, there are several elements you can play with to raise up your chances not only to finish your creative challenge but also to collect the maximum benefits from it.

The first thing to understand is that a creative challenge relies on three main elements:
- Time
- Risk
- Sharing

There’s no order. One is not more important than the other. You need those three elements to obtain the maximum benefits from a creative challenge.

Actually, you also need those three elements to activate your creativity in general. Same thing.

RISK

For a creative challenge to be challenging, you need to pick something that interests you and that you want to discover, explore further, or work on.

Because no matter how passionate you are, there will be days where you will wonder why you’re putting yourself through so much pain when you could just be binge watching whatever is to be binge-watched.

The best way to help you push through those moments is to pick something that will make you grow. So every time day you’ll create something, even if it feels half-baked, you’ll have moved further on your learning curve.

If you pick a field where you’re already very skilled at, chances are you will quickly fall back into your comfort zone and yes, you might complete your creative challenge, but you won’t have a sense of accomplishment and you won’t have grown much from it.

To activate your creativity you need to feel you’re taking a risk. That you’re pushing your own envelope. There needs to be an element of unknown and an element of interest in what you do.

My last creative challenge was about my grandmother. She was an amazing woman who used to speak out her mind and could say hilarious, beautiful and outrageous things within the same sentence. She also played an important part in the resistance during the war in Lebanon and built a foundation that made a significant difference in the life of thousands of people over the years.

I’ve always wanted to make a part-animation, part-documentary about her life but my time kept being distributed in other ways. So I decided that the creative challenge would be my way of starting exploring my grandmother’s universe.

If the only thing I was doing with my life was this project, I could have spent hours everyday diving into the material I have about my grandmother and produce high-quality content. But it wasn’t. I actually took on this creative challenge at one of the busiest time of my life. Because if you wait to have time to create, chances are you won’t create often. So there was a risk I wouldn’t come up with feasible ideas. Which really means that I would have to find creative ways to create something. That’s what you want.

For my last challenge, that translated into creating animations, asking family members about stories, and going deeper into my own memories, finding back anecdotes I thought forgotten.

By Feasible Idea what I really talk about is having time. And that’s our second element.

TIME

We all crave for more time. Time is the highest currency in everybody’s life. And when it comes to creativity, Time is both your ally and your enemy.

You must spend time to create. But in the context of a creative challenge, you also must set a time frame, otherwise, things will quickly get out of control, especially if you’re a perfectionist.

Creating daily means that whatever happens, you need to make time to create. Sounds obvious and yet, one of the main mistakes I see people doing is taking on challenges that will ask them way too much time on a daily basis. Sure, you might be able to secure 2 hours per day the first 3 or 4 days, but 30, 60 or 365 days in a row? During holidays, sick days and crazy work days? Unless you’re Casey Neistat, you’ll probably give up, drained. (negative benefit)

When you pick your creative challenge, you need to assess what’s the minimum amount of time you can spend daily. Is it 5 minutes? 30 minutes? 2 hours?

For my creative challenge, I decided that it shouldn’t take me more than 30 minutes, everything included. And by “everything included”, I meant: creating the drawing and sharing it afterward. (More on that point shortly).

And for the most part, I managed to do so. Some days it took me much longer. I spent 4h on the last animation, and every animation took much more than 30 minutes, but on days I was pressed with time, I also managed to create and share in less than 20 minutes.

Once you know how much time you’d roughly like to spend daily on your creative challenge, the next step is to define constraints that will help you move faster.

Constraints are essentials. Without them each day you’ll have to go through hundreds of possibilities, and by the time you’ve narrowed them, chances are you’ll already be exhausted. The best way to help your creativity is to channel it within a frame:

- Pick a Medium

I picked drawing. Sometimes animated but most of the time, a simple drawing. It can be video, audio, photo, painting, sculpture etc.

- Pick a Format

This time I picked digital. My first 100 days challenge, which also was a drawing one, I always used the same square paper. I would pre-cut them and carry them everywhere, so whenever I would have time and (ideally) an idea, I was ready to create.

- Other possible constraints

For my last challenge, I decided that I would always show my grandma sitting on her couch. I have hundreds of stories about my grandmother, but the number reduced dramatically with this constraint. At the same time, it helped me focus on creative ways to tell a story each day, rather than spending a high amount of time drawing new places and getting lost in it. This resulted in me introducing new characters and situations within the same frame, and I loved it.

During Activate Creativity, one of the exercises is a daily creative challenge. At the beginning of the week, we give participants the choice between two possible challenges, with specific constraints. One of them is that they are to spend 15 minutes on it. You’ll be surprised how much you can come up with in 15 minutes as long as you have the right constraints.

Finally, there is a third element you need to evaluate before settling on a creative challenge:

SHARING

If you don’t share what you create, it doesn’t exist. That’s as simple as that. But for a creative challenge, the sharing element goes even deeper than that.

Sharing reinforces both Time and Risk. If you don’t need to share, you don’t have to finish so you won’t feel obliged to spend time daily on what you do.

Sharing also redefines what taking risks really means. Sometimes you won’t be done but the day will be over, and you’ll have to share whatever you could come up with. At that moment, you’ll learn to let go and take the risk to show an unfinished work. It will teach you to be comfortable with vulnerability and imperfection.

And like everything in life, the more you’ll experience that situation, the more you’ll feel comfortable to take bigger risks. Imagine where that could lead your creativity and growth overtime…

Sharing also makes you accountable and feeds you to continue.

People get hooked on creative challenges. They like to follow and support. Those daily likes, no matter how many they are, will help you push through. It might sound vain, but we create to connect with others, expressing something we hold in our heart. If nobody sees it, what’s the point?

When you know people are waiting for your daily challenge, it makes a world of a difference.

Sharing will also increase the amount of Time you spend on your challenge. In other words, you need to think about your distribution workflow.

The more platforms you want to share on, the more time it will take. The medium that takes the most time, distribution wise, is video; because you need to export and upload it. So when you pick your challenge, ask yourself: where do I want to share it, what do I need to do to share it, and how much time will that add daily?

TO RECAP:

• Risk: Pick a topic or a medium you’ve been wanting to explore for a while and find what’s the sweet spot between too easy and too ambitious for you. (Find the challenge)
• Time: Define how much time you can reasonably spend on a daily basis on average. Then define constraints to give a canvas to your creativity and save time on details so you can focus on the big picture.
• Sharing: Commit to sharing daily on at least one platform. Then define how much additional time it will take you to do so. (Redefine your time accordingly if needed).

One last thing:

Once you’ve decided what to do and how, create a unique hashtag that will allow people to find your body of work and catch up on your journey.

Any questions, comments, reactions? I would love to hear from you. Let me know below.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, consider clapping!

Nathalie Sejean is Activate® Creativity co-founder, a company dedicated to help you reconnect, stretch and nurture your creativity. Click here for more.

How to Pick a Creative Challenge that Works was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

and there’s a way to heal from it

Maybe creativity came easy to you. You could tap into it, people would praise you about it, and you never really questioned what made you creative and if it could ever stop.

And then maybe one day you woke up to realise you had lost your way to your creativity. Nobody ever mentioned that was a possibility and yet here you were, feeling dry inside, with a knot in the stomach, and fearing someone would realise you were no longer creative.

Maybe you thought it was gone and over.

Maybe you thought you had been a fraud all those years and that it was time to retrieve back into ‘normalitude’.

Maybe you felt life was not as charming without the sparkles of crazy that made you you.

Symptoms of a Burnout

Hi, my name is Nathalie and I’m a recovered creative in burnout.

Six years ago I was living in Los Angeles trying to write the smart, witty and ultra-low-budget screenplay that would give me my first break. I was living in Hollywood, driving on Sunset Boulevard, attending weekly Q&As with J.J. Abrams, Guillermo del Toro, or Joe Wright, and yet, I felt empty.

I had overcome odds and obstacles to be where I was, all I had to do was being creative and yet, I felt empty.

Every day I would tell people I was going to sit at my desk to write, every day I would sit at my desk to write, and every day I would write. And yet, I felt empty.

Ideas came from my right brain. Everything I wrote carried a purpose, a controlled intention, a hope for a reaction. And as I was writing I knew it lacked magic, spontaneity, and risk. In other words, it lacked creativity.

The Shame of Being a Creative who Doesn’t Feel Creative

After a few months at that rate, something started filling up my emptiness: shame. Shame for not being able to deliver. Shame for no longer feeling creative.

The more ashamed I felt, the more I would try to push back. I would work harder and force ideas onto the paper. I would write and rewrite, and I would fail. Every moment of creation was painful and I started dreaming about taking a regular job, the one that pays because you show up and execute.

I was lost but I knew one thing: I should not talk about it. Even to myself.

When your identity is to be creative and your living depends on your ability to come up with original ideas, admitting you no longer feel creative is complicated.

Until that point in life, it had never occurred to me that I could wake up and stop feeling creative but after months of inner fight, emptiness, and shame, I started believing that that was it for me. I had dried up my creative well.

Misdiagnosed

It took me a couple of years and a graphic novel to realize that I had not stopped being creative. I was experiencing a creative burnout.

I know, I know, burnout is the new trendy word. Everybody is on the verge of being in a burnout. That’s people’s way of showing they’re working super hard, and they’re very dedicated employees.

But being in a burnout is not a joke. It’s not a badge of honor. It’s an indicator that your life-force is drying up and your mental and physical health are in danger.

It’s not cool to be in a burnout. It’s painful and devastating.

And the tricky part is: it takes time to realize you’re experiencing a creative burnout.

You can still function. You can still come up with ideas and produce work that will satisfy your client, publisher, editor. But you know. You know that what you “created” came out of habits, tricks, and skills rather than creativity.

And it could be ok but it’s not. Because you know relying on those skills and tricks and habits is the only thing you have left, and it’s just a matter of time until they stop being enough.

What you need is tap again into the volcano of creativity you use to trigger at will.

But that’s what a creative burnout does: it closes the door to the volcano.

No more access.

Healing Your Injury

There’s a way, though. It is possible to unlock the gate and access your creativity again. It starts by destroying a myth.

The Myth is that you and I are creative. We are not creative. Creativity is not a gift given by the gods because we are special. We are not creative. But we have creativity within us.

Imagine that creativity is a hidden muscle. When you visualize creativity like a muscle, the obvious appears immediately:

a creative burnout is not a fatality, it’s an injury.

Gate unlocked.

You haven’t dried up your well of creativity, you’ve overworked your creative muscle. You forgot to stretch it. You repeated too many times the same movements, over-developing sections and weakening others. And you probably didn’t nourish it with supplements.

We all do the same mistake. Athletes do it too.

That’s why they have coaches, experts, and doctors to help them heal and grow stronger.

Because you can grow stronger from an injury. And if the creative burnout is an injury, you can come back more creative from it.

How?

By taking care of it.

The remedy lies in taking incremental and repetitive steps to get back on track. And seeing yourself as a professional athlete and your creativity as the core muscle of your growth and success.

One of the most effective techniques I’ve used over and over in the last 5 years is completing a daily creative challenge. A creative challenge is a creative outburst you commit to producing daily for a determined length of time: one week, one month or one year. You chose.

It’s free and accessible to anyone. You can decide to start a creative challenge today and you’ll effectively be taking the first step toward healing.

And if the only thing you can do is say “I want to heal”, but you can’t create your own challenge and would rather recover within a safe and contained program, you can join our 28 days “creative detox” program. All you have to do is take 10 minutes per day for yourself and your creativity.

10 minutes seems like little and yet, you’ll be surprised how much will power it can ask from you. But as Tony Robbins said, “If you don’t have 10 minutes, you don’t have a life.”

Bottom line: You can recover from a creative burnout. But you need to want to.

If your creativity matters to you, you need to invest in it and commit to taking care of it. You need to allocate time and resources to develop its strength and you will see it flourish. And when your creativity flourishes, you flourish.

If you’re curious for more, find out how to pick your creative challenge.

If you’ve enjoyed this article, consider clapping!

About the author: Nathalie Sejean is an audio and visual storyteller. Every Sunday she sends a newsletter to a community of curious minds about storytelling, creativity, filmmaking and satellite thoughts. You can join here.

Creative Burnout is Not a Myth was originally published in Activate Creativity on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.