100 Ways To Motivate Yourself, Third Edition

44. Just make everything up

Sometimes in my seminars I will ask the people in the audience to raise their hands if they think of themselves as “creative.” I’ve never had more than a fourth of the audience raise their hands. I then ask the people how many of them were able to make things up when they were younger—make up names for their dolls, make up a game to play, make up a story for their parents when the truth looked less promising.

All hands go up.

So, what’s the difference? You made stuff up as a child, but you’re not a creative adult? The difference is that we have charged the word “creative” as meaning something truly extraordinary. Picasso was creative. Meryl Streep is creative. Wyclef Jean is creative. But me? One of the ways to get ...