What is my favorite AI creativity hack?

I’ve long since learned that my creativity cannot be forced. If I have to bring my mind kicking and screaming to the table to be creatively productive, at best it will produce mediocre work as a gentle reminder of who’s boss.

I absolutely adore the approach from Neil Gaiman about his writing cabin. When he goes there to write, he doesn’t force himself to write. He can either write or do nothing. It’s an ingenious hack to avoid force and kickstart the work.

Another hack I’ve discovered recently is using AI to light up the creativity neurons. I don’t use it to outsource my creativity although sometimes that can be helpful. I get inspired by other humans creating.

I spend time in the midjourney discord looking at other people’s prompts, works in progress and final outputs. People are so freaking creative with this stuff. A recent favorite is AI’s interpretation of every country in the world as a villain. It has absolutely nothing to do with my own creative work, and yet it’s amazing.

I’m not forcing my brain to go into creative mode if it doesn’t want to. I’m slightly nudging it in the direction that I want to go with help from my new AI friends. Sometimes it goes along and sometimes it doesn’t. Either way it produces vastly superior results than force.

Is it ok to breathe again?

It feels like my default mode these days is for my body to be in a full-clenched, fight or flight mode. All. Damn. Day.

And honestly, I'm not even a little bit mad about that. It makes sense. That's what it's there for. To protect me during times like these.

But.

It's also not so great for creative work, deep thinking or strategy work.

One of my normal strategies of going for long walks in nature just isn't as relaxing as it used to be when there are so many other people around. So I've had to come up with some ways to let my guard down (when I'm in a fully isolated environment that has been thoroughly disinfected of course).

I've found some good tunes where I can jam out for 5 or 10 minutes and have a little one-man dance party around the apartment. I also do lots of handstands which for some reason helps to be inverted for a bit.

One unique little hack I've found. Whenever I read something on social media that suggests to "take a deep breath" I stop everything I'm doing and take an actual deep breath. It's been a wonderful reminder.

I'm glad to know that 1000s of years of biological programming is still doing it's job. And I'm also thankful for the deep breaths and dance parties during all of the chaos.

But for real, what should I do?

Yesterday, I wrote my shortest post yet (with moderate levels of snark).

If we accept that we must not do our shoulds, how can we best spend that "should" time instead?

Pick a hobby that brings you a lot of joy. Or spend time cultivating a new hobby.

I found this amazing study about Nobel Prize winning scientists. Here's what it found:

"Studies have found that Nobel Prize-winning scientists are about 25 times more likely to sing, dance or act than the average scientist.

They are 17 times more likely to create visual art.

They are 12 times more likely to write poetry.

They are 4 times more likely to be a musician."

There are many theories why the creative arts allow us to be more successful at whatever it is we are doing. My favorite is the cross pollination theory which says that the ideas in one field can lead to inspiration and innovations in other areas.

When we are hyper diligent about our time and eliminate the shoulds, we have the opportunity to do more of things that bring us joy. And as a wonderful bonus, it actually makes us better at everything else.

How do I create more options in my life?

Let's start with an assumption: having more options in life is better than have few to none.

If you agree with that assumption as I do, then the immediate follow-up question should be:

"How do I create more options in my life?"

I've indirectly spent the last few years of my life exploring this question, and here's the running list that I've come up with. Most of them don't need any explanation, although I may turn any or all of them into separate posts as some point. Also, I'm using the word options here in the traditional sense of choices and alternatives, but also in the sense of our perception and awareness of solutions and experiences that may not have been possible from a previous state.

In order to maximize my options, I have either consciously or unconsciously started doing the following:

• Reduce or eliminate situations, people and environments that make me feel angry, hopeless, frustrated, aggressive or massively triggered
• Decrease personal burn rate of recurring and fixed monthly expenses
• Allocate time for synchronicity, manifestation and allowing magic to happen
• Take a beginner's mindset and objectively ask both obvious and non-obvious questions
• Increase time spent adventuring and exploring new places
• Dig deeper into mastery of things that are important to me beyond the surface level and amateur status
• Explore new topics and subjects that seem fascinating where I have very little knowledge
• Meditate to increase trust in the unknown and remove attachment from forcing a particular outcome

There is an incredible body of knowledge that studies the relationship between our energetic state and the options we can see. From the absolute lowest energetic, there are literally no options. We are just going to lose with no way to win. As our energy level increases, we can see the solution in black in white then many possible options all the way up to unlimited options with an definitive guidance towards the correct option for us.

One of the most important things I do to improve my ability as a leader and a Creator is to design my life to optimize for my energy. Maximizing my time spent in the highest energetic states provides me with all the options I will ever need.

What is the purpose of meditation?

First let me start my saying that I am not qualified to answer any questions about meditation other than my own direct experience.

I have been practicing meditation for the last three years under the guidance of some incredibly knowledgeable individuals, and yet meditation is prehistoric. It literally has been around longer than we have recorded history! (So cool) I feel like I'm still on the first or second step of a very long journey, so anything that comes next is from personal experience and not expertise.

I first became interested in meditation by listening to the Tim Ferriss podcast (thanks Tim!). He'd interview world class performers, experts and wildly successful people, and the topic of meditation would come up over and over again. Once I made the plunge into the world of meditation, I was hooked.

So, what's the purpose of meditation?

Honestly, that question is like asking what's the purpose of writing. It could mean so many things to so many different people. Meditation can be useful for reducing stress, increasing calmness, finding inner peace and on and on.

Here's what can be difficult about meditation:

The purpose of practicing meditation isn't to become better meditators.

When we practice soccer, piano or ballet, we are doing so in order to become better at playing soccer, piano or ballet. With meditation it's different though. There's no such thing as a perfect medtiation session.

What's extremely interesting to me is how we can use meditation to help us be better leaders and creators. And in this regard, I've found two types of meditation to be most useful.

Mindfulness Meditation

The first type of meditation that I've found particularly useful as an entrepreneur and leader is a mindfulness practice. There are many styles and types of meditations that can accomplish this, and generally these bring awareness to our thoughts.

Mindfulness meditations help us become more present in our day to day interactions. It's about becoming more comfortable with our own mind and thoughts. This creates more self-awareness which then allows us to make better decisions and be better leaders.

I've seen such profound effects in my own personal awareness over these past few years. This particularly shows up when things may not be going so smoothly. I've noticed how differently I now show up when new obstacles and challenges present themselves, and it is FASCINATING. I'm not perfect, but I'm way better.

Insight Meditation

I have "found" many answers through meditation. There are certain types of meditation (Vipassana in particular) that help us create space in our minds where the answers can come to us. I've found it similar to discovering new ideas in the shower or solving problems in my sleep, only this is a much more intentional approach.

Insight meditations have helped me to approach problems from new and unexpected perspectives, detach and untangle myself from messy situations to see what I'm not seeing and to create space for entirely new ideas to come through. Without going too far down the rabbit hole, I've found that many times I've already had the answers and just needed to be in the right headspace to receive them and understand them.

I've also had other-worldly experiences with heart opening meditations, somatic meditations, collective and dynamic meditations, but mindfulness and insight meditations have been the most useful to me as a creator.

As we look to unlock the next level of the video game and build the things we are here to build, there's no doubt that meditation will be a key ingredient.