Creative people are often seen as a rarity: smart, curious, and able to look at the world with fresh eyes. A common misconception is that creativity cannot be cultivated, and that instead some lucky people have an innate sense of creativity. But this assumption is wrong. According to classical psychology research, there are three main …
It’s no secret that I love writing. I write everyday for this blog as well as other publications, and have an on-and-off journal I use when I feel anxious and need to put my thoughts on paper. Many people don’t realise how much time they spend writing every day: we send emails, we write to …
I hit an important milestone this week. About 100,000 people have read the writings on this website. I couldn’t hope for that kind of scale when I decided to write one article every weekday. It’s a pretty exciting thought to have thousands of people engaging with ideas coming straight out of your mind. It made …
We had our first mental gym session at Backed VC yesterday with a small group of founders. It was all about mindful productivity, mental well-being, and achieving our goals. As you know, I’m a big proponent of writing, whether for mental wellness, learning, creativity or personal growth. It’s such a powerful and accessible skill everyone …
Update: following the success of the mindframing article, I published a literature review that explores the science of personal growth outside the school and work environments, and how makers can use mindframing to manage their personal growth. Writing is wonderful. Thanks to the generation effect, it helps you better remember what you read—even if it’s …
Have you ever had a great idea while engaged in a totally unrelated activity? That’s actually a fairly common phenomenon. Our brain tends to make interesting connections when not focused on performing a specific task. This is why we have shower thoughts. But to get quality creative output, we need quality creative input. How do …
I have written and published one new article on this blog every single week day for the past four weeks. That’s 20 articles in a month. These are not diary-style posts where I talk about my daily life: they’re in-depth articles about productivity, creativity, and mental health. It’s worth noting that, while I’m in the …
Many people think that creativity is innate—that is, a talent a fortunate few are born with and that cannot be taught or learned. This could not be further from the truth. Yes, creativity is innate in the sense that we are all born with it. But, as we grow up, most of us slowly unlearn …
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. Albert Einstein. Children have an incredibly inquisitive mind. “Why?” they keep asking. They explore new things for no other reason except that they just want to know. Researchers tried to figure out how often kids ask questions. Turns out, a lot: on average, children ask 107 …
We all possess creativity. However, sometimes, it feels like our muse is gone. We just can’t seem to find an idea worth working on. Making things is hard. Here is a list of books to inspire you and stimulate your imagination. If there’s a good book missing from this list, it’s because I haven’t read …