Seven Habits of Highly Creative People | Dr. Pavan Soni | TEDxIBSPune

Summary

The speaker emphasizes the importance of creativity in the age of automation, asserting that humans should focus on being creators rather than competing with machines for efficiency. They define creativity as the generation of novel and useful ideas, distinguishing it from innovation, which is the commercialization of ideas. The talk highlights habits of highly creative individuals, such as not compartmentalizing science and art, having an 'opposable mind' to defer decision-making, and the significance of hobbies in fostering creativity. The speaker encourages embracing hobbies, taking half-chances, and maintaining low latent inhibitions to cultivate creativity.

Takeaways

• 😀 Humans should focus on creativity as machines become more efficient at routine tasks.
• 🤔 Creativity is the ability to produce novel and useful ideas, while innovation is the ability to commercialize those ideas.
• 🎨 Leonardo da Vinci exemplifies creativity through his blend of science and art, taking a long time to perfect his work.
• 🧠 Creative individuals often have an 'opposable mind', deferring decisions and holding contrasting ideas without immediate judgment.
• 🎻 Hobbies are crucial for creativity, providing new perspectives and connections that can lead to innovative ideas.
• 🚫 'Latent inhibition' refers to low constraints on thought, which can enhance creativity, as seen in the brains of people like Einstein.
• 🎯 Taking half-chances and embracing failure through experimentation can foster creativity.
• 🧠 Low IQ with low latent inhibition can correlate with higher creativity, suggesting that attitude matters as much as intelligence.
• 🤷‍♂️ Having low alertness and being open to small stimuli can lead to more creative connections.
• 🃏 Creativity can be cultivated; it's not just an innate trait, and habits such as protecting hobbies and taking risks can enhance it.

Q & A

What is the main difference between creativity and innovation as discussed in the script?

Creativity is defined as the ability to generate novel and useful ideas, whereas innovation is the ability to commercialize these ideas. Creativity focuses on idea generation, and innovation focuses on the application and commercial success of those ideas.

Why did it take Leonardo da Vinci 22 years to paint the Mona Lisa?

It took Leonardo da Vinci 22 years to paint the Mona Lisa because he was deeply involved in connecting science with art. He spent six years just drawing the lips, as he was studying biology and optics to understand how light reflects, deflects, and absorbs, integrating this knowledge into his artwork.

What is the concept of 'opposable mind' as mentioned in the script?

The 'opposable mind' refers to the ability to hold two contrasting ideas in the mind simultaneously and not immediately decide between them. It's about deferring judgment and decision-making, allowing for more creativity and flexibility in thought processes.

How does playing the violin relate to Albert Einstein's theory of relativity?

Albert Einstein was an excellent violin player, and his ability to think spatially, developed through playing music, is believed to have contributed to his formulation of the theory of relativity. Spatial thinking involves thinking in space, which helped him conceptualize complex scientific theories.

Why are hobbies important for creative individuals as discussed in the script?

Hobbies are important for creative individuals because they provide self-confidence, a new perspective, and new connections. They allow individuals to engage in activities for intrinsic motivation rather than external rewards, which can lead to innovative thinking and problem-solving.

What is latent inhibition and how does it relate to creativity?

Latent inhibition is the brain's filtering system that ignores familiar stimuli. For creativity, having low latent inhibition allows individuals to pay attention to a wider range of stimuli, which can lead to more diverse and innovative ideas.

How does the speaker relate the concept of taking half-chances to creativity?

The speaker suggests that creative individuals are more likely to take half-chances, or risks, which can lead to new opportunities and learning experiences. This approach can foster creativity by encouraging experimentation and embracing the unknown.

What is the significance of the 'mirror box' experiment mentioned in the script?

The 'mirror box' experiment is significant because it demonstrates a simple, non-invasive method to alleviate the sensation of a phantom limb. It shows how creativity in science can lead to effective and low-cost solutions to complex problems.

Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of not being too serious in life?

The speaker emphasizes the importance of not being too serious because it can hinder creativity and the ability to enjoy life's randomness. By maintaining a sense of humor and light-heartedness, individuals can be more open to new experiences and ideas.

What is the speaker's advice on how to cultivate creativity?

The speaker advises cultivating creativity by developing habits such as not compartmentalizing thoughts, having an opposable mind, protecting hobbies, having low latent inhibitions, taking half-chances, and maintaining a sense of humor and light-heartedness.

Outlines

00:00

🤖 The Role of Humans in Creativity

The speaker begins by emphasizing the importance of creativity in the face of increasing automation. They argue that humans should focus on being creators, as machines will surpass human efficiency. The speaker proposes cultivating habits of highly creative individuals and differentiates between creativity and innovation. Creativity is defined as the ability to generate novel and useful ideas, while innovation is the commercialization of those ideas. The speaker uses Leonardo da Vinci as an example of a polymath who combined science and art, suggesting that creativity involves not compartmentalizing but integrating various fields of knowledge.

05:00

🧠 The Opposable Mind and Hobbies

The speaker discusses the concept of the 'opposable mind,' which is the ability to hold two contrasting ideas without making a quick decision, exemplified by Steve Jobs' insistence on a buttonless phone. They also touch on the importance of hobbies in fostering creativity, suggesting that hobbies provide self-confidence, new perspectives, and opportunities for making new connections. The speaker encourages the audience to protect their hobbies from the demands of work and societal expectations.

10:00

🎻 Hobbies and Latent Inhibition

The speaker explains how hobbies can be crucial in later life, especially during retirement, by providing self-confidence, new perspectives, and opportunities for networking outside one's professional domain. They introduce the concept of 'latent inhibition,' which refers to the brain's filtering system that can limit creativity. The speaker argues that individuals with lower latent inhibition are more creative, as they are more open to new experiences and ideas.

15:02

🧠 The Relationship Between Creativity and Latent Inhibition

The speaker delves deeper into latent inhibition, explaining how individuals with lower inhibitions are more creative, even if they have moderate IQs. They discuss the implications of this finding, suggesting that attitude is more important than intelligence in fostering creativity. The speaker also emphasizes the importance of asking questions over knowing answers, especially in the information age where answers are readily available through search engines.

20:03

🤹‍♂️ Embracing Chances and Experimentation

The speaker concludes by advocating for taking half-chances and embracing failure as a means to learn and grow. They discuss the importance of low alertness and being open to small stimuli for fostering creativity. The speaker also encourages the audience to take it easy, to not confuse seriousness with sincerity, and to enjoy the randomness of life. They suggest that creativity can be cultivated like stamina, and they end with a call to action for the audience to adopt habits that foster creativity.

Keywords

💡Creativity

Creativity, as discussed in the video, is defined as the ability to generate novel and useful ideas. It is a fundamental human trait that sets us apart from machines. The speaker emphasizes the importance of nurturing creativity in humans, especially in contrast to the efficiency of machines. Creativity is showcased through historical figures like da Vinci, who combined art and science to create groundbreaking works.

💡Innovation

Innovation is distinguished from creativity in the transcript. While creativity involves generating new ideas, innovation is the process of commercializing those ideas. The speaker clarifies that innovation doesn't necessarily require the generation of new ideas but focuses on the successful implementation and adoption of existing ones.

💡Habits of Creative People

The concept of 'habits of highly creative individuals' is introduced as a set of practices that can be cultivated to enhance one's creativity. The speaker suggests that successful and creative people have certain habits, and by adopting these, one can potentially increase their own creative output.

💡Opposable Mind

The 'opposable mind' refers to the ability to hold two contrasting ideas in the mind at the same time and not immediately make a choice. This concept is used to illustrate how creative individuals often defer decision-making, allowing for more comprehensive consideration of possibilities before reaching a conclusion.

💡Deferring Decision-Making

Deferring decision-making is highlighted as a trait of creative individuals. The speaker explains that instead of making hasty decisions, creative people prefer to stay with the problem, sleep on it, and consider it from various angles, which can lead to more innovative solutions.

💡Hobbies

Hobbies are presented as an essential aspect of nurturing creativity. The speaker argues that hobbies, driven by intrinsic motivation, can provide new perspectives and connections, which are vital for creative thinking. They also serve as a means of self-expression and confidence-building.

💡Latent Inhibition

Latent inhibition is described as a psychological phenomenon where individuals filter out irrelevant stimuli. The speaker suggests that those with low latent inhibition are more open to new experiences and ideas, which can foster creativity.

💡Polymath

A polymath is someone with knowledge in many areas, often combining disciplines in unique ways. The video uses da Vinci as an example of a polymath, emphasizing how his diverse interests and knowledge contributed to his creative genius.

💡Spatial Thinking

Spatial thinking, as mentioned in the context of Albert Einstein's violin playing, refers to the ability to visualize and think in three-dimensional space. The speaker implies that this form of thinking can contribute to creative problem-solving and conceptualizing complex ideas.

💡Taking Half Chances

The concept of 'taking half chances' is used to describe the willingness to take risks and make decisions without complete information. The speaker uses MS Dhoni as an example to illustrate how embracing uncertainty and risk-taking can lead to unexpected success.

💡Phantom Limb

The 'phantom limb' phenomenon is mentioned as an example of a creative neurological experiment. It demonstrates how our brains can be tricked into perceiving things that aren't there, which has implications for understanding the plasticity of the brain and the potential for creative thinking.

Highlights

Humans should focus on creativity as machines become more efficient.

Creativity is the ability to generate novel and useful ideas.

Innovation is different from creativity; it's about commercializing ideas.

Leonardo da Vinci exemplified creativity by combining science and art.

Highly creative individuals don't compartmentalize; they blend science and art.

The opposable mind in creativity involves deferring decision-making.

Steve Jobs had an opposable mind, delaying decisions until necessary.

Albert Einstein's violin playing influenced his development of the theory of relativity.

Hobbies are crucial for creativity as they provide self-confidence and new perspectives.

Creative people protect their hobbies fiercely from external pressures.

Latent inhibition is a characteristic of highly creative individuals.

People with lower IQ but low latent inhibition can be highly creative.

Creativity can be cultivated, similar to building stamina.

The importance of asking questions over knowing the answers in the information age.

M.S. Dhoni is a role model for taking half chances and developing muscle memory.

Experimentation is key to understanding one's life calling.

The mirror box experiment shows creativity in solving neurological issues.

Taking half chances and viewing life's randomness can lead to creativity.

Transcripts

so thank you very much Suzanne absolute

privilege to talk about creativity and

today's tomorrow is creativity with the

advent with which machines are taking

over the piece of work that is supposed

to do it's important that humans carve

out the niche that we have left far

behind

I strongly propose that humans are the

agent of creation there's nothing better

than creation that we are supposed to do

you're not supposed to be as efficient

as machines are and in the fight that we

have between humans and machines

eventually machines will take over so

what I am proposing to all of you today

are the habits of highly creative

individuals what I use of phrases habits

these are habits the way successful

people have a few habits even creative

people have a set of habits and their

way habits can be cultivated my

resolution to all of you would be and

let us see if you can cultivate some of

these habits but even before I delve

into that I would like to propose a

working definition of what is creativity

because as students employees at all we

often confuse these two phrases what is

creativity and what is innovation let us

start with creativity creativity is the

ability of an individual or a group of

individuals to come up with ideas which

are novel and useful there has to be

novelty and there has to be utility if

an idea is not useful it's like a

daydream but if an idea is useful but is

not novel it's like a common sense we

all have one let's look at innovation

innovation is not same as creativity

innovation is the ability of a company

or a group of individuals to

commercialize an idea it doesn't need

you to generate an idea but needs you to

commercialize an idea so allow me for

the next few minutes to take you through

some of the most creative people that

have dealt amidst us and the practices

that they have let's start off with this

one of the most famous polymaths that we

have ever known

da Vinci now what you see on the image

here is a vitruvian man

this figure is less known that it took

about 200 scientific measures for da

Vinci to draw this figure one other

rather more famous paintings of da Vinci

is Mona

it might be very surprising to most of

you that it took da Vinci good 22 ears

to roam on ELISA 22 years if you compare

that with the standards of living that

we have today

that is pretty much 1/3 of a living life

you can pretty much declare da Vinci has

a very tardy lethargic man who has taken

22 years draw a single painting so much

so that he took six long years to draw

the lips of Mona Lisa six years draw the

lips of Mona Lisa why why did he take

such an excruciating amount of time to

do something close about 600 years back

the answer lies in his ability to

connect science with art same applies to

Steve Jobs or Elon Musk so another very

important characteristics of people who

are highly creative is that they don't

compartmentalize in their head science

and art they pretty seamlessly mix

science are not he was an artist a

scientist a biologist a physicist in

equal measures so much so that six years

into drawing Mona Lisa he was on going

anywhere he abandoned the project and it

took a course in one of the universities

in Italy where he was on biology and for

all that you know is our dissecting

human beings and this very golden ratio

that we know of three is to four which

is very eloquently depicted in this book

called a da Vinci Code

wasn't learned by theory he practiced he

dissected human bodies of course dead he

dissected horses he dissected almost all

animals and then he wasn't done yet he

joined a null universe in Italy and this

time he studied optics in optics he

studied that when a light falls on a

certain object how does it reflect

deflect absorb absorb and he brought the

understanding of biology and optics to

Mona Lisa now Mona Lisa then is not a

painting it's science

so my first submission to you is that

whether you are a scientist or an artist

drone draw the boundaries in your head

things have to be far more seamless than

what you're supposed to be thinking as

second important thing about creative

people is what we call as opposable mind

you are said to be a great manager or

even a great thinker if you can take a

decision

quickly where there is the funny thing

about the creative people creative

people don't take decisions quickly

on the contrary creative people defer

decision-making we have a phrase in

creativity which says that if you have

to take a choice don't don't take a

choice don't even make a choice and

that's what we call as opposable mind

opposable mind is like your opposable

thumb you know we all have these two

opposable thumbs

you must never had this opposable thumb

what happened to us was that through

years of evolution this this fifth

finger over here started slipping it

didn't happen overnight nobody woke up

saying that oh I have got something

funny here it didn't happen in one

generation either nobody said look my

kid has a thumb it didn't happen that

way it happened through years of

evolution when this fingers are slipping

from here and the moment this became

this opposable thumb a revolution

happened for the very first time the

primordial scan now hold things like

this I can hold things I can make tools

with the help of these tools I can go

and kill and from a nest whether all of

a sudden I become a hunter-gatherer with

the hunter-gatherer I need to

communicate back to my nest I can't

communicate back to my nests in

syllables like birds or chirping like

birds I need a strong vocal cord for a

strong vocal cord I need an erect

backbone for erect backbone I need to be

able to have a vocabulary storing

mechanism and that's what is called as

neocortex so if you look back at the

evolution of human beings it all

happened

with this very lucky accident called the

opposable thumb so the creative people

have something called the possible mind

which means that they can hold two very

contrasting ideas in their mind

simultaneously and choose none it's not

about choice making it's about deferring

the judgment Steve Jobs the poster boy

the late Steve Jobs the poster boy of

innovation he wanted a cell phone that

works like any other cell phone without

a button and for the first six months

the entire battery of brilliant

engineers fought with him that sir at

least give us two buttons so he said no

no button and now he must be turning his

grave with iPhone X coming without a

single button now and that's what we

call is a possible mind

don't take a decision unless and until

it is required

stay with the problem when I'm what I

mean by staying with the problem I also

mean sleeping with the problem and for

those of you are married you would

understand what I mean sleeping with the

problem so a possible mind is very

critical when it comes to creativity

another important thing is this now have

you ever imagined Albert Einstein

playing violin for God's sake the only

images that might conjure up in your

mind about this man is either is stung

stretching out or some very unimaginable

unconceivable mathematical equation on

the blackboard behind him playing a

violin doesn't occur to us isn't it but

less known phenomena is that he was an

extremely good violin player so much so

that the recent studies of Albert

Einstein's brain and I'm sure you must

be knowing that Albert Einstein's brain

was smuggled when it's autopsy was done

so the guy who was doing his autopsy

smuggled his brain without any

permission of the family and when the

family did the you know the rituals they

realize that the most important organ is

missing so he dissected the brain into

small pieces shipped it to various

people across US and Canada with the

advancement in the CT scans they rebuilt

his entire brain and realized something

very interesting with Albert Einstein's

brain what they realized is that one of

the sections of the brain of Albert

Einstein was quite similar in its

structure to the section of extremely

good musicians and then they started

talking to musicians extremely good

musicians like hands em er of the fame

of Dark Knight and when they realize

that how musicians become great they

don't start reading the notes they just

don't refer to the notes at all beyond a

point so when musicians become great

they develop what we call a spatial

thinking spatial thinking means thinking

in the space and the less known fact

then remains that is ability to think in

space which came out of his able to play

violin is exactly what helped him

conjure up the theory of relativity so

if I were to propose to all of you that

E is equal to MC square came out of

violin you wouldn't believe me

but that's not too far-fetched and

imagination either which means that we

all need to take our hobbies seriously

let's go back to our childhood days when

did we develop hobbies as a child

hobbies were developed by all of us -

pretty much

occupy the time when a good eight hours

ten hours between sleeping and perhaps

going to that kindergarten and between

that time we're to fill that time

somehow those were the days when we

didn't have these electronic gadgets so

picked up hobbies then we had schools

and more recently we have jobs what a

job does is a job eats away into our

hobbies the fundamental difference here

between a job and a hobby is this a job

is something that you do and you

continue to do with a very clear

external motivation such as a salary a

promotion incentives or whatever else

you have whereas a hobby is something

that you do and you continue to do with

a very intrinsic motivation what I'm

proposing to all of you is that creative

people protect their hobbies very

ferociously they protect their hobbies

from their jobs they protect their

hobbies from the people who evaluate

their hobbies and these hobbies will be

very useful when all of us will be

retiring by the time most of the

students sitting before me will retire

the life expectancy in this country

would be about eighty-five years so you

are actually twenty five boring years in

your life between 60 and eighty-five

boring years when you would not have

huge physical strength when you can't go

out and that's where the hobbies will be

very crucial to you hobbies do three

things to you first thing is that hobby

gives you self-confidence because here

is a point in time when you are not

getting judged in comparison with

somebody else the second thing that

hobby gives you is a new perspective

when you're gardening when you're

cooking when you're painting singing

dancing for your own benefit by the way

you shift your mindset you shift your

mindset from the problem zone to the

solution zone and still keeping in your

mind the problem which you want to solve

and the third thing is that allows you

to have new connections when you're part

of a bike club blood donation camp

gardening camp

Bharatnatyam club etc etc you end up

engaging with people who are outside

your work domain and that is why you

realize that maybe the problems that you

are so grappling with have been solved

already by somebody else in some other

domain so why not just learn from them

and that's why some of the most creative

people are absolutely polymaths they

don't define their life by their titles

or by their roles they define their

lives quite broadly the canvases are

drawn quite neat and quite broad so have

a hobby and more importantly protect

your hobbies hobbies are very important

in life go back to your childhood and

you realize why another important thing

about about the creative class is what I

call as latent inhibition what you see

on the screen over here is a very

interesting gentleman by the name John

Nash the very fascinating movie made on

him by the name Beautiful Mind which got

our man Russell Crowe win the Oscar and

John Nash won the Nobel Prize in

Economics for his work on game theory I

don't know how many have seen the movie

but the movie is an amazing movie I

strongly suggest you watch that movie

what happens in the movie is a depiction

of this man's thinking he is known to be

suffering from mental disorder called

six affray Nia what happens if Sue

frania is that it manifests itself into

two dimensions one dimension is called

paranoia paranoia means that somebody is

conspiring against me a bunch of people

are going to kill me if I cross in my 18

minutes that's called paranoia the

second thing is called hallucination

hallucination moon shot imagining for

example what I am doing right now is

again a bunch of people listening to me

intently

that's called hallucination if you

combine hallucination with paranoia that

becomes six affray Nia now the

interesting thing is this for many years

scientists had this very fascinating

finding the finding was the brain

mapping of people who are sick so

phrenic it's quite similar to the brain

mapping of people who are highly

creative now how is that possible does

it mean then that the people who are

sick so phrenic are bound to be more

creative or worse still does it mean

that the

people who are highly creative abound to

be six or phrenic which is very

disturbing thought isn't it there is a

correlation but there is no causality

one doesn't lead to another both of them

perhaps work together recently there was

this very interesting research paper

that came out in one of the magazines

and this figure popped out in the

research paper what you see on the

screen allow me a minute to explain this

figure do and this will be quite a I

open er to all of you it was to me

actually what is she on the screen are

two categories of people one with a

moderate IQ and one with a very high IQ

let's look at IQ what is IQ IQ is your

mental age divided by your chronological

age multiplied by 100

that's your IQ score mental divided by

chronological in 200 is IQ score

generally IQ score ranges from about 100

to about 160 anybody about 160 is called

a genius anybody below hundred is called

mentally most of us have a IQ

of about 110 at home and one fife at

office depends on a designation however

and 110 at home also depends upon if you

are married or not

having said that pay attention to this

particular image on the y-axis you have

something called creative achievement

score which also suggests that yes

creativity can be measured like

intelligence can be measured with IQ

score even creativity can be measured

and how the creativity part can be

measured that's for some other time and

some other day but remember this one

important thing so to set of people

moderate IQ about say 110 and high IQ

about 150 and then you're trying to

measure their creative scores you have

two cohorts one with a high latent

inhibition and second with a low latent

inhibition let me explain this to you

what is latent inhibition put

constraints on to our cells which does

not allow us to be free and express

ourselves what this image shows is very

interesting that the people who have a

low IQ play pay close attention to all

and especially in the

the parents or maybe tomorrow's parents

today's tomorrow the people with a with

a low IQ score are far more creative

than the people with the higher Q score

provided their inhibitions are low which

means what which means that between

intelligence and attitude its attitude

that matters and not intelligence if I

tell this to my dad he wouldn't agree

because all his life and all my life the

only thing he focused on was how good am

I squaring in-school intelligence now

when my teacher walked into my

classrooms this is what she asked me

that hey Pavan what is 5 into 2 and the

answer was 10 had my teacher acid

slightly different question this time

not what is 5 introduced she would have

asked me power and tell me what are the

various ways I can come up to the number

10 the answer could have been and all of

us would have started yelling out

actually the answer would have been 5

plus 5 5 into 2 2 into 5 10 into 1 11

minus 1/9 plus 1/8 plus 2 30 minus 3 you

see the moment that changed the question

from one answer which is 10 I have so

many answers so what is more important

is not the answer what is more important

is the question and more so in the

Google economy in the Google economy I

don't need to know the answer actually I

just need to know the question what's my

search phrase that's more important

because there are zillions of results

that Google is throwing at me in

milliseconds and I'm not even willing to

go below beyond the page number one and

that's what questions are very important

and having low inhibitions are very very

important don't be so critical about

what others are saying it's perfectly ok

it's absolutely ok because I know for a

fact then if you give too much heat to

people around you possibly you're not

paying attention to yourself and

somebody's very very rightly that the

recipe of sucks is not known but the

recipe of failure is your intent or your

desire to please everybody around

yourself so have inhibitions low it's ok

if you are going to a room going to a

conference where people are completely

straight

it's okay if you're talking about

something where you are not sounding

very intelligent it's okay it's

absolutely okay to have the mind of a

child in the body of an adult and

believe me you this will do a lot of

good to all of us so have inhibitions in

control don't have a very high level of

alertness your alertness has to be low

you should be open to small small

stimulus around yourself small things

start enjoying small things and start

drawing connection on small things and

that's very critical in my opinion

another important thing is taking half

chances he is my role model ms dhoni

and I really wish one day he watches

this video me praising him if you look

at the story of ms dhoni

nothing went along the plan his entire

life is dotted by taking half chances

look at this one over here when he

started stomping off these batsmen eight

out of ten times the guy was in the

crease the batsman was in the crease but

what it did in this entire process of

taking of the bales is develop almost a

muscle memory it took so many half

chances that over a period of time his

reaction time became 0.1 seconds the

best in the field taking half chances

what happens to all of us and more so

with the higher education levels that we

achieve is we start waiting for the

right opportunity in the right frame to

be coming all the way to us but what I'm

suggesting is that creative people

always look at the crack in the door and

they sniff through it they never wait

for the opportunities to be coming to

them decorated the Creator fortunate is

and there are fewer examples in my mind

from this country then this gentleman

over here very created opportunities all

along this way so take half chances you

will fail and if you fail what you need

to understand is the importance of

experiments now this is one of my most

favorite experiments from the space of

neurology what you see on the screen is

a man with a missing limb we call this

is a phantom limb now this is very funny

thing that happens suppose a man's limb

or a a person's limb gets computed the

interesting thing is that this person

whose limbs

because of an accident or disease or a

war when the limb is cut often people

feel a sense of itchiness in the limb

now how do you H a limb that doesn't

exist now there is a very interesting

professor a famous professor in the US

by the name V s Ramachandran who studies

this phenomenon he called this is

phantom limbs phantom limbs means that

of limbs that do not exist but troubles

you now how do we scratch a limb that

does not exist now for long the solution

that these elegant neurologists had was

to do a mental surgery now brain being

such a complex organ there are more

chances of you creating more problems

and solving one if you ever venture in

so he came with this very simple elegant

experiment that works called the mirror

in the box what happens in this

experiment is that a person who has a

amputated limb goes to the box with a

mirror stretches the actual limb on one

side of the mirror and he sees the

reflection of the actual limb stretching

the phantom limb on the other side and

he this reflection fools him to think

that perhaps his limb has got

resurrected and believe me you this

experiment has shown to cure his problem

almost permanently now compare the cost

of this experiment with a neuro surgery

or the cost comparable not at all and

that's what I mean by doing cheap easy

dirty experiments life has to be full of

experiments and only then you will

realize what your calling in life is and

most importantly taking it easy v in our

country have this very fundamental

problem that we confused between

seriousness and sincerity

isn't it true we assume that for a

person to be sincere he or she has to be

serious and that's why my role model the

joker comes to play here what happens is

that because life is so random as a

speaker before me narrated life is so

random there is absolutely no reason to

either draw a lot of pride from your

success a lot of guilt from your failure

when you move along the way keep doing

experiments have latent inhibitions take

half Chancellor's have multiple

affiliations is when you start realizing

and start enjoying

the randomness that life has to offer to

you so my submission to all of you is

that creativity can be cultivated like

stamina can be cultivated and for you to

cultivate creativity there are some

habits that you can I request to all of

you right here is that if you can't pick

up one habit let me call this is one

hobby or one practice from this list

over here that will make my narrative

who was talking about so thank you so

very much and have a good day ahead

[Applause]