Nurtuing Creativity

Elizabeth Gilbert starts out her presentation with a story of how her career took off by writing her book called " Eat, Pray, Love". She talked about how people approached her and said things like, aren't you afraid that you are never going to be able to top that?, and you are doomed that that will be your only successful book, your career will just plateau from now on... ect. The same comments came about her career choice form friends and family, aren't you afraid that you wont be succsessful, and writing is not a job it is a hobby...ect. So the bigger question that came of this was Why? Why are people afraid to fail at something they are great at and make a living off of that is creative and uses natural talent? Her response was that creative people and creative workers have a repuation of being mentally unstable and unpredictable.
Society has this stereotype of creative people like writers, artists, and designers are not smart and the only reason they are doing those jobs is because they didn't do well at school or can't get another job because they, as Gilbert said, are "mentally unstable". Society has not valued the importance of creative minds and how much they contribute to our world. As Dan Pink says throughout his book " A Whole New Mind", right brainers will rule the world. Think of all the products and advertisements and movies that you have seen. Designers and architects and artists have put massive amounts of time designing a product that is appealing to the eye and that might persuaded the buyer to buy. Without designers our world, streets, and homes would not be what they are. It takes innovative people to create something new and beautiful that we would buy.
Elizabeth Gilbert goes on to talk about how creativity is unstable with some people and how it can be protected and looked at as a gift by society instead of something unpredictable in writers and artists. She says that the pressure of being a genius or creatively inclined has killed off many of the artists and the want to be someone who is creative.
Schools I think have a similar mentality that creative minds can't and don't "make it" outside of school and that being an artist is looked at a crazy idea. Schools need to change their mentality and encourage children and teens to express themselves as they want to and to follow their talents and try and fail but get back up and try again. Dan Pink says that not being afraid of failure and being able to come up with new ideas even if they don't work is a very important characteristic of being creative. Never letting the fear of failure get in the way of their ideas.