The #1 Skill That's AI-Proof (Episode 98)

How are you today , john T Blossom ?

It makes for a really interesting adventure story . The major themes in that book are how to get along with Mother Nature and the environment . The Last Football Player is a young adult coming of age science fiction novel , near Future , about a young boy who is about to become a freshman in high school football star in the Silicon Valley in approximately 2040 .

However , his father is deeply concerned about him getting injured , so he pulls a bunch of strings and gets football banned instead of telling his son he can't play , and so now he's very unpopular and he has to go to a tech lab and meet people he doesn't really like .

But he learns to appreciate them and together they make a robotic football team to get around the ban . So it's about technology , ai , robots , what the future is going to be like on the football field , but also in our daily lives .

What's the essence of it ?

Because they have to teach the robots to play , and so in order to do that , you have to know what football really is about , and so I won a couple of sports book of the year awards , and I can understand why because it's not just your usual hero goes and plays football and gets the cheerleader yeah , that's been done over and over again .

I guess you could technically call them series , but that's not my interest . My interest is in writing books that have themes that relate to high school kids , based on my and middle school kids , based on my experiences as their teacher for 30 years .

how did you become a writer ? Yeah , tell us , thank you . How did you become a writer ?

And so for all those years , I was making kids write in class , writing in journals , grading their papers , encouraging them to write , telling them writing is really exciting . It's a wonderful thing to do . And then , when I retired , I said okay , I've got a chance to do this . I've been telling people this my whole life .

I better put up or shut up , and it's been an unbelievably fun way . I'm more busy now than I ever was when I was a teacher , and I'm doing something I really love and yeah , so it's kind of a dream come true for me .

No , you don't , you can . You're a teacher , and then you switched on over to writer Beautiful , and you're doing something that you love and and that is something I want every single young person listen to follow in your footsteps . On that principle , do what you actually love , and it's okay if you do something for a season and then switch .

I'm glad that you enjoy what you're doing . So tell us what is creativity ?

well , can you ask me some easier questions ?

And I'm pretty sure that it's not a thing , but that it's a process and that , yes , it results in art and yes , it may result in music or dance or whatever the medium writing , or even culinary or woodworking or automobile shop or whatever . Yes , it produces art objects , but that's not ultimately the whole story .

I think what a lot of people forget to talk about when they talk about creativity or defining creativity , is that it really is the permission that you give to yourself to be playful in order to bring something new into the world . And that element of play is hard for us to embrace in ourselves as we get older .

No-transcript product . But if you're thinking about the end product too much in the beginning , it'll just stifle you because without that element of play , of play , you don't tap into your true nature Like I'm thinking , like my cat is behind me while we're talking and she's very calm and most of the time she sleeps .

But every once in a while she'll pick up a you know a toy and toss it in the air and play and run around and be ridiculous . True to herself . There , in that moment of play , she's not thinking about whether I'm going to yell at her or whether I'm saying something , whether she's violating some rule .

She's just in the moment , enjoying her physical body and her playfulness . And I think that's the key . If you have the impulse inside of you to do those kinds of play in that kind of way , you should honor that and give yourself permission to do that , because then you might discover something that really is meaningful in your life .

So what I hear you saying is if someone feels under pressure to create a piece of art and be done with it and create it perfect the first time , that's not necessarily the way to go about it . Yeah , it's a way your time and enjoying the process of creation toward that end goal .

Because like take , for instance , when I'm writing one of my books , if I'm sitting down to my computer and I have 10 chapters to go , or maybe I'm halfway through and I think , oh , I've got to get done with this book , how am I going to get from here to the end ? And I'm not thinking about the scene I'm in at the moment . That scene is going to suck .

I have to focus on that moment , those characters , that situation , immerse myself in the process , play with the scene in my mind , get things down on the paper just for fun , see where it goes , and then eventually you do that over and over and eventually you have a novel .

And then you go back and you hone it , for you hone the project in the editing process . But the initial creativity is all about the cat-like playfulness , the why not ? That you have in your brain .

If you want to be an artist , you're going to have to make , paint , a lot of different pictures , play with it and not be afraid to make something that looks crazy . If you want to be a makeup artist , you're going to have to play on some faces and see what works and what doesn't .

If you want to be a hairstylist , you're going to need to play with some mannequins or your friend's heads and see what works and what doesn't . I can go on and on .

It's okay to play , because I completely agree with you on that If we don't play , we can't really what's the word I'm looking for develop the greatness of our creativity , Because there are a lot of people I see that are just amazingly creative .

But if we sit inside the box of well , you can't do this , you're supposed to think this way , you're supposed to think that way , that is a trap , a prison for your creativity , Would you agree ?

Yeah , sometimes you really , you know , get upset with yourself because it doesn't come out the way you want , but you try again because essentially , the process is just lots of fun . So try .

You know they're , maybe they're not as popular as other kids or , uh , you know , as they don't get as many likes on social media or or whatever , because their minds are are thinking differently , they're , they're , they think differently and and they can't help it because that's the way they're wired . And if they get too much , oh , you're a weirdo , or whatever .

That can discourage them from developing their superpower . And , oh my gosh , it's creativity a superpower . In fact .

I've come to believe , like I stopped teaching before AI really took over , but I have come to believe that in the age of AI , a lot of the mundane tasks of writing and math and other things and business and all that this is going to get taken over and done by computers . What's left ?

The only thing that's left , is human creativity , because computers and I go into this in the Last Football Player but computers don't have a human body , so they don't have the same connection with the earth , they don't have the same creative history that's in their genetics . They only have what we've given them and AI is a regurgitation tool , right .

It only gives what we've already given to it . So if 99% of the people are depending on AI to write their emails and to do their business plans , the 1% of the people who are creative are going to stand

out , and they're the ones who are going to be successful .

minds are . They're outside the box and very often I completely agree with your statement Very often the greatest minds , the greatest creative minds , get stifled because they're forced and shoved into a conformity box and it kills their creativity . Did you find that happening with you when you were younger ?

And my only salvation was school and at school I found supportive teachers because teachers liked my creativity and they liked that I was a good student . Much about the other kids only because I had spent my whole life being independent in my family . So I was kind of a self-sufficient kid .

But for someone who perhaps wasn't that self-sufficient and maybe stands out in their family for being creative

and they go to the school and maybe they've had siblings who are football players or maybe a little bit more conventional in their thinking , they might feel a little self-conscious and people say , oh , you're nothing like your brother . I mean , what's up now with you ?

And then they feel horrible about themselves , which is really too bad , because in creative people have the advantage .

So my advice to those kids if you find yourself in that position where you're getting put down for being kind of socially awkward or thinking outside the box , or maybe you have interest in things that other people don't have interest in and you're a deep dive and they give you a hard time about it . My advice is to find your tribe .

Find the other people who are outcasts like that and be their friends . Be the person who's emanating love and creativity , not the person who's using creativity to put other people down . You know we're getting defensive and that can be tough advice to take , because teenagers are insecure and we all want to be accepted .

But I can guarantee , you know , in a high school or any kind of school , from 10 on up to 2,000 , 10% , maybe 15% , are going to have an arts-oriented creative . Maybe they're theater people , maybe they're art people , maybe they're music people , and chances are they're fairly quiet about it .

Chances are they're feeling the same way you feel , uh , about maybe not revealing um , your , your talents , uh , those are the people to make friends . Sit down with them at the lunchroom , you know . Ask them . You know . Oh , I see you're drawing something . Do you mind showing me what you're drawing ?

Because I really like drawing too , you know , and all it takes is is one or two friends like that and wham . Your high school experience is so much better .

I love the advice that you just , I was just going to ask you to give , and there you go giving it , the advice that you give to those who are feeling that way right now , because there's a lot of them who are different thinkers , and I love the different thinkers because I think that's where a lot of buried treasure is , and creativity , I think , is the

buried treasure . It's a buried treasure in a lot of people , and there's some adults who are listening right now , john , who are like you know what . I could have been him when I was younger , I had all this creativity , but I stifled it , pushed it down , and now I'm just a corporate robot . Is it too late for them to do something about that ?

Start listening to those inner voices , because the voices of inner creativity are whispers . They're not a hurricane , despite what some people say , you know . Oh , I had to play the violin and the symphony because I just couldn't do anything else in my life . Well , unlikely , more likely , they had violin lessons .

It was hard at first and then they had a teacher who was encouraging and they found some talent and then they got reinforced and then it became the hurricane impulses that you have , especially when you're a teenager . Gosh , you know , man , that was a pretty cool drawing I saw on Mary's notebook . Maybe I can do a little drawing . Well , then you just do it .

You have to listen to those whispers and try a little drawing in your notebook . Try to post a meme . If you see a meme that's really clever , somebody posted , you know . Just maybe post one for yourself and just try it . You never know what's going to catch fire in your soul .

And for older people , you know , it's easy for them to think , well , I'm just not creative . But no matter what job they did , they had to bring some level of creativity to it . Like I had a doctor come to my booth where I sell my books and he said , oh , I'm not a creative person . And I said , well , what do you do ?

So I'm a surgeon , I'm a heart surgeon . I said you tell me that when you go into somebody's heart and you look and every person's a little bit different , you're not applying just even a little bit of creativity of how to fix this person's , you know , aorta or whatever . And he said , no , no , no , I just follow procedures .

And I said , well , I kind of doubt that , I kind of doubt it . I think you're more creative than you give yourself credit for yeah because kind of the opposite , even , within the procedures you need creativity , yeah . I think so .

I mean , maybe he wouldn't admit to that because you know , if somebody died under his , you know watch they said well , you weren't following procedures , you were being creative with my body , right ? So maybe he just

has to cover himself , you know , by saying that that is true , that is true .

A mindset of play , a mindset of enjoyment , a mindset of diving in and trying things playfully , is how you're going to find your tribe , it's how you're going to find your mentors and it's how you're going to find the purpose in your life , the things that you do in your life that put you in the flow state where you're so involved in what you're doing that

you can't even , you don't even realize that the time is going by . Those are the magical moments of connection with love , with the earth , with your own nature , with other people . Those are the ones that the most satisfied people in the world seek out , and it comes through that process of creativity , of play , leading to serious purpose .

So I guess that's what I would say and try to support other people . Try not to get sucked into the . Oh , she thinks she's a musician and she sucks . Look at the way she plays the clarinet . She can't even make a note .

Try never to get into that , because this is a person who's playing at becoming herself and , um , you know , and every person deserves your support in love . Uh , and the more you give it to other people , the faster you'll find your tribe and the faster you'll be able to do something that gives you meaning in life .

I have four books under that name and the three I mentioned before under John Blossom , and then my website lists all my books and has links to places to buy them and information about them at jtblossomcom .

And in fact , the dream that was the basis for Mahina Rises was me flying through my orchard when it was my apple orchard when I was a kid in Milwaukee , Wisconsin , when it was in full bloom , when I was a kid in Milwaukee , wisconsin when it was in full bloom . So yeah , I think that names do have a little bit of influence .

I'm not saying it's the only reason why I'm creative , but if my name had been Steelheart or you know , or let's see some other , I don't know Brick Wall , if my last name was Brick Wall .

was worth our time . Thank you .

You've been told to climb in and stay in Because it doesn't fit in with your corporate surroundings . Do you have a creative gift that you've been suppressing ? Maybe it's time to explore , have fun with it , because one thing I do know if you were given a creative gift , it wasn't by mistake .

Your creativity is there to bless the rest of us , but that can't happen unless you first develop it . So take a chance today , starting today , and develop your creativity . The world is waiting . You've been listening to MindShift Power Podcast . For complete show notes on this episode and to join our global movement , find us at FatimaBaycom Until next time .

Always remember there's power in shifting your thinking .