Lessons
Course Introduction
08:10 2Ikigai
05:31 3Technique
05:08 4Greenhouse for Creative Growth
04:22 5Manifesto
09:40 6Time
06:31 7Momentum is a Friend
06:53 8Harvard of the High Seas
03:50Style
05:24 10Creative Clarity
10:35 11Awaken the Inner Artist
05:44 12Disciplined Daydreaming
03:32 13The Freedom of Constraint
04:18 14Intermission
01:14 15Reframe
03:38 16Stay Hungry
04:58 17Identity
07:34 18The Amateur Spirit
04:57 19Design the Life You’d Like to Live
06:59 20Too Much, Too Fast
03:08 21Lucky to Be Alive
06:49 22Guts, Courage and Confidence
10:53 23Thin Places
03:40 24Devil’s Advocate
08:27 25Create a Collection
06:39 26Dead Sea
04:47 27Solitude
04:07 28The Journey Ahead
02:13Lesson Info
Stay Hungry
Okay, well why is it that we love adventure so much? What is it that, why is it that we find it so appealing to have these adventures, to get out into the wild? Well, I think it's because we've become too soft. I was recently down in Costa Rica surfing with some buddies, and we were out at this one spot and all of a sudden someone said, "Crocodile." And there was a 10 foot crocodile swimming in the water not too far away from where I was. And when something like that happens it awakens your senses in a completely new way. I mean, it is primal and you are alive. I like how Yvon Chouinard talks about adventure. He says, "Something isn't an adventure "until something goes wrong." And I think one of the reasons we like adventures is because of that element of surprise because of the limited means. Sometimes what an adventure is, is when you go and do something and you don't know what will happen and you don't maybe even know if you'll survive, right? And one of the things that happens in t...
he creative space is that often we become too soft. We can press Command Z and undo something if we make a mistake. We're not really that committed to the cause. And so what I want to encourage you to think about is, what would creativity be like if it was more of an adventurous thing? I think one of the things that it would be, it would say, "You know what? "Come hell or high water, "I'm gonna make the most with what I have." And throughout history there's people who have done that. Like a couple I've written down: Victor Hugo. You know he was exiled to an island away from his homeland. And there he was in the top floor of his home, it was like a greenhouse type of thing, looking over the channel back to France. And it was there in exile that he wrote many of his greatest works like Les Misérables, you know. And there's Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote, he began to write that while he was in prison and he said, "You know here I am stuck, "I mean everything has gone wrong. "But come hell or high water I am going to create. "And I'm gonna create within this context of limited means." And that's really the core theme for this idea. How do we do that? Well one of the ways I think that we do that is we begin to add limits on what we do. So here are a couple kind of action steps or ideas for what you might do. One is, first it's saying, asking yourself, "How do I bring adventure back into my life?" And then, secondly it's asking, "Well what limits can I add to what I already do?" Maybe you do creative work of some sort and you always have big budgets. Well do something with no budget at all. Maybe you're a band that plays in pretty big venues and you go to really nice recording studios. Well go garage band, literally. Like go to a garage and record a song. Like go back to that limited context. Or maybe you're an illustrator and you always use a computer to finesse and fine tune everything you do. Well go back to pen and paper. Or perhaps you're a photographer like myself. You know, a great way to limit the camera is to use gaffer tape and to tape down your controls, tape down the focus ring and go and do a shoot. So that you literally cannot change focus except by moving your distance away from the subject. I mean that will make you creative in unimaginable ways. And with all of this creativity, what I encourage you to do is to pick something that you can do, but don't share it with anyone else. Because that kind of ruins the adventure, right? If I were to say, "Hey, I'm gonna go down to Costa rica and surf with the crocodiles," it would remove the element of surprise. It wouldn't really be an adventure after all. Remember Yvon Chouinard's words? He said, "An adventure, it's only that "when something goes wrong. "That's when it becomes a true adventure." So I encourage you to pick out an exercise, something that you can do where you have limited means and really go for it. Alright, well next I wanna share with you a couple ideas for ways that you can dig deeper. Books are always inspiring. And here are two books that perhaps can help you to step up your game. One of them is called It's Not How Good You Are, But How Good You Want To Be, by Paul Arden. And this is one of the books that will waken you up from being too soft and things being too easy. And it will kind of light that fire. Another one, more about a historical event, it's called Endurance. And it's about Ernest Shackleton's incredible voyage by Alfred Lansing. And this book is more of an adventure story in the truest sense of the world before GORE-TEX, before GPS, before anything else. And when you read adventure stories like that, the point is to say, "Well how can I have some of that in my own life "and in my creative process and workflow as well?"
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Ratings and Reviews
Lynda Adlington
Excellent. Would recommend this to every creative soul. Inspiring . Thank you very much Chris for this course.
Brenda Pollock Smith
Chris is an evangelist for all creatives. He facilitates expanding our creativity in very simple, practical ways. Really good stuff! Thank you Creative Live for offering this kind of soul food content.
François Morisset
Wow...we need more of Chris Orwig..His wisdom in life mix with photography is extraordinary! What a great gift I got from creativelive..that gift is Chris Orwig. thank you soo much
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