Introduction to Neuroscience and Creativity

So I wanna talk for a second about neuroscience and about creativity. Isn't that what you signed up for, neuroscience and creativity?

Yeah, right, totally, yeah. Nerd out, let's go.

Exploring Creative Flow

So I just, one of my favorite studies on creativity comes from a really interesting cat out of Johns Hopkins named Dr. Charles Lim. So Dr. Lim's a neuroscientist and he is obsessed like I am with this question about creative flow.

Unlike me, I can only be like Einstein and do like thought experiments. He can actually look at the brain with an fMRI scanner. So he's far more kind of legitimate authority on creativity.

And what he does is he puts jazz musicians inside an fMRI scanner. I kid you not. Can't make this stuff up.

Methods of Investigation

and freestyle hip-hop artists, for example.

And basically what he does is he takes photos of the brain when they're reciting known bars like Jay-Z or Snoop Dogg or something, and then he'll say, now freestyle, and he takes photos of the brain and he's doing a compare and contrast study, right? Or same for a pianist, right? You're playing a Bach concerto, right? And then he'll say, now improvise. And then he's taking photos of the brain to say, what's different?

Key Findings

And he's basically looking at that and his question is effectively, or he started this research by saying, what turns on? Anybody know what the creative part of the brain is that turns on?

The fascinating thing is actually nothing really, nothing turns on. That's the fascinating thing. But the fuller answer to the question of what turns on is actually something turns off.

And I mention this right now because the thing that turns off is super important.

The thing that turns off is, do you know? Judgment. Isn't that fascinating?

Personal Insights on Creativity

I was a guinea pig at Stanford Business School about 20 years ago when they were revamping the curriculum, which means I paid for the privilege of them experimenting on me. And I'm still working through it with my therapist. It's great.

But they gave an entire semester long on critical analytical thinking, right? I didn't have a single class on not critical imaginative thinking. Literally not one, right? And yet,

What Dr. Charles Lim found is it's not our ability to critique or judge that sets us apart when we're trying to be creative. It's our ability to not judge. It's our ability to forcibly, deliberately turn off that criticism.

And you don't know this, I just did a brain scan with everybody here. This is what I found. Okay, this is, it's a metaphor, it's a metaphorical brain scan, right?

But the critical part of our brains are like super jacked, like Arnold Schwarzenegger kind of style, level of muscle. And then the non-critical part of our brains are like Napoleon Dynamite, you know, like, my lips hurt real bad, I need chapstick, kind of a guy, right? It's a deep cut, for those of you who haven't seen that movie, you should watch it.

But the point is, the point is, our non-critical part of our brain needs a lot more development. And I want, I'm gonna joyfully invite you to flex muscles that maybe you haven't flexed in a while, right?

Critical vs. Creative Thinking

In your typical day to day, you get rewarded for seeing why something won't work. That's critical thinking.

The numbers in the fourth column don't add up. It's like, thank you, Mert.

I don't know. I don't know anybody named Mert, right? But it's like, thank you for that critical contribution, right?

That's what tends to get rewarded. Sorry. You didn't realize that there was a stand-up comedian starting today, did you?

That's what ends up getting rewarded is this critical, judgmental, finding the flaws. Very important when you're filing your taxes. Not very important when you're trying to imagine something new.

Embracing Sparkability

When you're trying to imagine something new, you actually need to turn off that instinct to say, why won't this work? right?

It's what I like to call being sparkable. You need to be sparkable.

And what I want to invite you to do today, and we'll actually do a little bit of a facilitated activity at the end, but in sparkability. Your goal, very simply, is to shift your mindset right now.

I mean, Diara and Zach are amazing. They're going to inspire you and spark you and that's great.

If you will turn off your critical thinking just for a moment okay turn off this question the normal kind of default is what do i think of this thing it's actually what do i think of that not helpful when it comes to new ideas what's very helpful is to say what does zach's demo make me think up Not what do I think of it, but what does it make me think up, okay?

Same thing for DR. I mean, you're not gonna be tempted to be critical of these people because they're so amazing, but this is just, it's good practice, right? And that your inner Napoleon Dynamite just needs to do some curls, okay? So just like treat it like practice, not that it's gonna be hard tonight, but like you work out so that you can play better at the game.

So hopefully this will help you tomorrow in your day-to-day, but really think not, from an evaluation or judgmental perspective, but instead from an imaginative kind of possibility fueled perspective. You're going to get a lot more out of it.

Actionable Steps for Creativity

You're probably all either sitting on post-its or you're dutifully holding them. The purpose of those post-its is for you to write down things you've never thought of before today.

That's the goal. Your goal is to walk out of the room with a short stack of ideas you've never thought of before you hear Zach and Diara in their demos, okay?

That's really the goal, okay? So you can write stuff down as you're listening, but at the very end, I'm gonna walk us through a brief activity where you're just gonna get a chance to kind of surface some of that sparkable stuff and share with one another, okay?