This article is not a tip on what I’ve done as the Creative Director of a Birch Studio, but some information about excellence in general that will hopefully give you license to enhance your own creative skills.
I was just reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Outliers. He provides historical facts about many of the world’s top talents – Canadian ice hockey stars, world-class violinists, The Beatles, Bill Gates – which show that in order to master a pursuit, one needs to practice with dedication for many hours over a very long period of time. He puts the number of hours roundly at 10,000. He writes about pianists:
“In fact, by the age of twenty, the elite performers had each totaled ten thousand hours of practice. By contrast, the merely good students had totaled eight thousand hours, and the future music teachers had totaled just over four thousand hours.”
While it seems that some people just swim in talent, the findings Gladwell shared show that the majority of notable people all worked at their professions very, very hard before they became the expert we know them as. That’s good news for people who feel they have no talent but wish they had. Practice makes perfect. And apparently, extreme practice makes expert.
If you’re a skeptic like me and looking to dispute this assertion, Gladwell references the study’s authors to seemingly give us that reassurance that mastery really is attainable by all who pursue it.
“The striking thing about Ericsson’s study is that he and his colleagues couldn’t find any “naturals,” musicians who floated effortlessly to the top while practicing a fraction of the time their peers did. Nor could they find any “grinds,” people who worked harder than everyone else, yet just didn’t have what it takes to break the top ranks.”
In other words, anyone who is willing to work at their craft can become at least competent. Your creative quotient is directly related to the amount of time you spend putting into it. Personally, I’m going to give these guys the benefit of doubt, work my butt off and go for mastery.
Why not give yourself the gift of creativity and self-mastery this year and practice more of what you love? Make gifts for the holidays. Gifts of music, painting, woodworking, organizing, food, basketball lessons, a guided tour through an historical setting… Anything that you love to do and would like to get better at is a potential source of giving for you and a very personalized, unique gift for your friends and family.
If you are as challenged as I am in gift-buying, your effort stands a fair chance of being re-gifted. When you make something of your own though, your odds of permanent placement in your recipient’s home go up dramatically. I live in a small home and routinely re-gift without a second thought. That includes gifts from Mom. Yet, I have a set of pottery that I never use and I just can’t get rid of just because a friend made it. If it came from the store, it would have been gone 12 years ago.
For the purposes of this post though, the benefit of creating your own gifts is that you get to practice your craft. You also get to share it with others, and that’s not so bad. It gives you enjoyment now and adds to the future enjoyment of your craft as you increase your level of mastery. After the holidays have passed and we’re into the freshness of the new year, you’ll already have this experience and some forward momentum.
Enjoy.
