AI is Coming for Your Job…. 

It is inevitable that artificial intelligence will take over many jobs currently performed by people; maybe the entire job or possibly certain parts of it. Maybe not right this moment for your job, but it is going to happen. AI coupled with robotics of every type will continue to take over more and more complex jobs. We can fear it, deny it, but it won’t change the trajectory of what is happening.

Humans do have an advantage; one that will hold up for the foreseeable future. It’s our ability to be highly creative. The human brain has an incredible ability to create in ways that defy explanation. We can create in every way imaginable.  We can write, draw, design, build, dance….we are always creating in this world. When we choose to create with purpose and intent, there are no limits to what we can achieve.

I personally believe that creativity is a skill that everyone can learn and master. After a lifetime of exercising my “creative muscle” I am amazed at how I can always improve. If you have never thought of yourself as creative, I believe it never too late to open up our ability to create with intent.  The more we are creative with purposeful intent, the better we get. For me, my early days as a creative in the product design world were hit or miss. I stressed over deadlines, hoping that the great ideas would appear. When they did, I was barely able to appreciate them as it was on to the next program and the stress of thinking up the next great idea.

For me the secret to creating unique ideas with purposeful intent was developing a process and practicing that process until it became second nature. The difficult part of the process, it requires confidence and faith that the process will work! My creative process was just like every new thing I have tried to get good at in my life. Painful at first as I struggled to consistently achieve the results I craved.

My creative process has evolved over the years. The process has many steps and there were skills I had to master. Here are just a few important takeaways I have learned from three and a half decades of operating in highly stressful, creative environments:

If you are feeling the stress you are already F#$%@*. Small amounts of stress can be a good thing. It can get us moving. Feeling a lot of stress over a creative project you are engaged in, though, is not so good. The stress starts a cycle of thinking that can close the mind down. I used to have a lot of days like that early in my career; staring at the proverbial blank white sheet of paper, rehashing the same, tired old ideas. Becoming more and more stressed as the deadline loomed ever nearer.

Often you will hear or read about how the best ideas come in the shower or when doing something completely unrelated to the problem that needs to be solved. It is true that doing something else besides obsessing about the creative problem can provide positive results. But it is usually not an option to run out and take a shower in the middle of a team brainstorm session!

The first step then, is to recognize that the stress level has reached a point where the creativity level is diminishing. Recognizing this simple fact is the first step to stop the stress cycle. Then we can deliberately decide to take different actions. They can small actions, such as deep breathing or visualizing the solution as already complete.   This can get us back into the creative zone…..where the ideas are flowing.

Develop a process – For me, mastering the ability to access highly creative ideas in my field of work, at any time, was my goal. Before I had a creative process that I loved and believed in, I might work for weeks on end, struggling to find the right creative solutions.  Then at the 11th hour I might wake up in the middle of the night with the game winning idea. This process was highly stressful, miserable and not always repeatable. It would burn me out and make me dislike solving problems; which was a shame. I believe being in our creative flow is where we can find some of our greatest joy.

The goal of my creative process is to allow my mind to relax because it knows exactly what to do next, regardless of the complexity or nature of my creative endeavor. Once my mind is relaxed, I can flow through the steps. It is between the steps of the process that the magic happens. Ideas appear. If at any point I start to doubt or stress about the outcome, the idea stream slows and stops. I recognize that, go back to the process and get back into the creative flow.

Prime the mind with information – This may seem really obvious, but the more information you learn, the better your chances are that highly creative ideas will flow. Always keep feeding the mind with different subject matter. Make a point to learn about all kinds of things. Things you may not understand; things you may not even think are interesting. You never know how or when this information might become the catalyst for the next great creative idea.

Our human brain’s ability to put seemly unrelated things together to create something new is a super power; it’s fun and fulfilling. It’s also how to keep AI from coming for your Job!