“At a certain age,” says world-famous creative powerhouse David Shing, “you start to want comfort.
"And I want the opposite of that. I just want creativity, creativity, creativity – in every shape and form.”
As AOL’s “Digital Prophet,” Shingy, as he is widely known, made an international name for himself, not only for his unique personal appearance and speaking style, but for exactly that nonstop creativity. Talk to him for a while, and you get some clues as to how he keeps it sparking.
Spark #1: Leap into the Unknown.
“I just put a bid in on a 1700’s hacienda with 100 acres in Yucatan, Mexico. So, yeah, I'm looking to buy an old ruin and seeing what I can do with that!” As he says, creativity sparks more creativity. “I'm a craftsperson by nature. I'm a designer by trade, and I practice my craft every single day. I'm either writing music or I'm designing. Why am I redesigning an old hacienda? My answer is, it's gonna make me so much more creative, for starters. It's just gonna be a longer commute. And I'm okay with that. It excites me, and it terrifies me, and I'm really comfortable with that.”
Watch David Shing at METAL
Spark #2: Ask!
If you have an idea, start a chain of “asks.” “What's really important here is the ask of an ask of an ask. You'll never know where you'll end up, and that's the power of it. I don’t know what’s going to happen, and really it doesn’t matter.
Ask the dumbest questions you can, and see who leads to whom, to who else. You never know who will have a pointed position on your interest that can change your life. If you've got an itch you need to scratch, ask somebody about it, get it going.”
Spark #3: Where to Put Your Attention
Put your attention on your intention. “I believe this is the secret sauce of everything,” he says, admitting it sounds uncomfortably like Tony Robbins. “But when you have your focus, give it your all. What do you truly most care about? If your number one value is family then get on with that. Get clear. And ask what do you need to do so you actually serve what it is that you love.”
Spark #3: Broaden Your Scope
Shingy was never your typical Aussie surfer boy kid. He was Chinese and driven by a unique energy. “At one point,” he remembers, “my parents sat back and just said, ‘let this kid be what he wants to be.’ They understood the importance of gifting a kid the ability to be who he wants to be. The danger, of course, is that you can you either run off the rails and become a lout, or you shrink and become conservative. I actually went the conservative route in that I didn’t do drugs or anything like that, but I put all my energy into becoming creative.”
Spark #4: Don’t Ask for Permission
“When you have a goal or a vision, crack on! Don’t ask for permission early, ask for forgiveness later… if you have to. In some ways, I only really got going until I was 40 and from there I accelerated.”
Spark #5: Be Loved or Hated
“I have a fundamental position,” Shingy loves to say, “which is, I'm either loved or hated. I don't want to be merely liked. I don't want somebody to say, ‘oh, I really like that guy.’”
But that realization lay dormant for years.
“In the corporate world, I woke up one day and said I'm incredibly unhappy because I'm not who I want to be.
I wear black nail polish. I have big hair. I've got a bullshit title. I've been able to dick around in the online industry for a long time, because it needs to have more rock and roll! I didn't want to be a reflection of what I thought people needed. I wanted to reflect back what I believe is me. And I realized that if it draws people in, that's great. If it doesn't, that's okay as well, because – f*ck it! – you either love me or hate me, and I don't care. I choose authenticity.”
Spark #6: Choose Authenticity
“Authenticity,” he says, “is an overused word. But it’s a beautiful word if people are able to live the way they should – even if that has its costs. I live with anxieties all day, every day, like everyone else, but I'm not about to give up my values. Don’t try and portray what you think people want. Say, you need to grind, you need to hustle. Do it. I present for a living and when I come off stage, people go, ‘oh, Shingy! You killed it,’ or ‘that was amazing. I love your hustle. You crushed it!’ But my truth is that I'm not crushing, killing, or hustling anything. Dude. I'm just a creative who is trying to create creativity. My core? I'm all about love and peace. I'm the opposite of what you talk about in your vernacular of business.”
Spark #7: Zen Writing
“I do this thing called Zen writing, where I set up a timer for two minutes, and I just do a brain dump. You can do this throughout the day, just to defrag your brain and also at night – otherwise you end up going to bed with the cup too full. I learned this in my early twenties from Stevie Wonder. He talked about his process that when he wakes up every single day, he writes a song every single day. Sure, some of his songs suck, but you get ‘Superstition,’ don’t you? What's amazing about this practice is, you set your time up to just unleash ideas in a short amount of time. You allow those ideas to flow quickly, and if it doesn't work, pause. Set it aside. Crack on to your day and your distraction, but come back to it again and again.”
Spark #8: Mindmap Everything
Shingy says that mindmaps are how the mind works.
“The beauty of mindmapping is that it plays to the visual cortex, and as you receive visual information, it sits in a different part of your brain, the way music does. Ninety-eight percent of the global population are taught to do what's called basic ordering of ideas. Top, left, bottom note-taking – straight down the pad.”
But that's not how the mind works, he explains. “The mind radiates just like nature radiates. You start with the central idea, and you allow the spoke of all the ideas, words and pictures to emerge out of that idea. You branch it out, branch it out, branch it out, and you end up with this crazy cornucopia of keywords and strokes. I used to go into my corporate meetings with a big art pad and markers and a mind map. Later, I would just be able to go back to my mind map and rather than searching for a linear thread of thought, I could point and say what we really need to talk about is right here. I always use pen and paper, by the way. I’ve tried all the softwares but I find they don't allow me to focus anywhere near as well as good old pen and paper.”
Spark #9: Choose Your Partner Carefully
“I've been married to my partner for twenty years,” Shingy reflects, “and she’s a total, enlightened being. She’s leading this new adventure as much as I am. I know single people feel free and I get that.
But this relationship allows me freefall as much as I possibly can – and [to] march on. I know plenty of people who are single and say they can do whatever they want. I get that. And I know a lot of dudes who have been burnt. But the truth is, I can only do what I do because I’m in this beautifully intertwined relationship that allows us both to trust where we're going and also allows us to be very bold. We have a special type of trust. If you can find it, if you have it, hug it tight. If you don't have it, seek it, and don't be cynical about love.”
Written by Adam Gilad
Trending Now
How NASCAR’s Foray into Electrification Could Help Drive Awareness of EV Benefits: NASCAR has recently joined other motorsports organizations in exploring electrification, a step that could boost EV awareness and interest among its extensive fan base. Last month, the governing body for North American stock-car racing, in collaboration with ABB, introduced an electric prototype. (Emerging Techbrew)
People are Buying More Teeny-Tiny Farm Animals: They're charming and require less food and space. Even better, they can help trim the lawn with little persuasion. There's a growing interest among Americans in owning miniature cows, goats, donkeys, and other small farm animals. Hobby farmers looking for manageable livestock and homesteaders drawn to the idea of a tiny pig or a miniaturized sheep as a companion are driving this trend. (The Hustle)
American Vulcan: Palmer Luckey was born in 1992 to Donald and Julie Freeman Luckey. He was homeschooled along with his three younger sisters on the bottom floor of a small multifamily home in Long Beach, at the edge of Los Angeles. Luckey single-handedly turned virtual reality from the laughingstock of the technology industry into a multi-billion-dollar enterprise by inventing the Oculus Rift in a camper trailer. The facts of Luckey's life are uniquely bizarre – this article takes a look at his life and what he's done since selling Oculus to Facebook for $2.7 billion. (Tablet Mag)
