Jordan Peterson - Why Being Creative Is Problematic And Even A Curse

um you know you hear very frequently people say things like everyone's creative it's like that's wrong okay it's wrong it's just as wrong as saying that everyone's extroverted first of all you have to be pretty damn smart to be creative because otherwise you're just gonna get to where other people have already got and that's not creative by definition so so being fast and being out there at the front of things really makes a difference and then you also have to have these divergent thinking capabilities and that's part of your trait structure and creative people are really different than non-creative people you know partly because for example they're highly motivated to do creative things and to experience novelty into and to and to chase down aesthetic experiences and to attend movies and to read fiction and to go to museums and to enjoy poetry and and and to enjoy music that's not conventional music for example these aren't trivial differences and so and so it's a real it's a real misstatement to make the proposition that everyone's creative it's just simply not the case it's a matter of wishful thinking it's like saying that everyone's intelligent it's like well if everyone's intelligent then the term loses all of its meaning because any term that you can apply to every member of a category has absolutely no meaning now that doesn't and you know the other thing you want to be thinking about here is that don't be thinking that creativity is such a good thing it's a high risk high return strategy so if you're creative you just try this there's creative people in this room man you guys are going to have a hell of a time monetizing your creativity it's virtually impossible it's really really difficult because first of all let's say you make an original product you think the world will beat a pathway to your door if you build a better mousetrap it's like that's complete rubbish it isn't it isn't true in the least if you make a good creative product you've probably solved about five percent of your problem because then you have marketing which is insanely difficult and then you have sales and then you have customer support and then you have to build an organization and you have to if it's really novel you have to tell people what the hell the thing is you know we built this future authoring program right and so it's available for people online how do you market that no one knows what that is and that's a real problem if you write a book well then you have the problem that another million people have also written a book but if you produce something that's completely new and doesn't have a category people can't search for it online how are they going to find it so you just have and then you have pricing problems and it's really unbelievably difficult to produce something creative and then monetize it and even worse if you're the creative person let's say you have a spectacular invention you've got no money right you've got no customers those are big problems and so maybe you go and you find a venture capitalist we start with family and friends because that's how it works you raise money for your product you raise money from your family and friends that's assuming you have family and friends that have some money and that they're going to give it to you and most people aren't in that situation so it's a terrible barrier right off the bat and then of course you're putting your family and friends at substantial financial risk because the probability that your stupid idea is going to make money is virtually zero even if it's a really brilliant idea and so then let's say well you get past family and friends and you get venture capital capitalists involved because that's often the next step or an angel investor that's there's there's steps in building a business family and friends angel investor that's some rich guy that you happen to meet some manner in some way who's who's into this sort of thing and is willing to provide you with some money to get your product off the ground well how much of your product is that person going to take well most of it most of it and then if you get a venture and no wonder because you know you don't have any money how are you going to bargain for control over your product he'll just say well do you want the money or not and if your answer is no then he'll go and do something else with his money it's not like there's no shortage of things that you can do with your money there's a million things you can do with it so you're not in a great bargaining position and then if you get venture capitalists involved they'll take another big chunk and maybe if they're not very straight with you they'll just throw you out because maybe by that point in the company's development you're nothing but a pain in the neck because what do you know about marketing and sales and customer service and building an organization and running a business like you don't have a clue so why do they need you so even if you're successful at generating a new idea and you put it into a business the probability that you as the originator of the of the idea are going to make some money from it is very very low so don't be thinking that creativity is such a is such a something you would want to curse yourself with and you know whenever i talk to people who are creative and you guys should listen to this because i know what i'm talking about if you happen to be creative if you're a songwriter or another kind of musician or an artist or or any of the other number of things that you might be find a way to make money and then practice your craft on the side because you'll starve to death otherwise now some for some of you that won't be true but it's a tiny minority your best bet is to find a job that will keep body and soul together and parse off some time that you can pursue your creative thing because then well as a long-term strategy medium to long-term strategy it's a better one but it's got incredibly difficult for people musicians for example it's incredibly difficult for new musicians to monetize their their craft even if they're really really good at it [Music]

Channel: Better Chapter

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Id: KGMgBtmAPlc

Length: 5min 25sec (325 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 11 2021