💡Pixar's lessons on creativity.

My notes from the book Creativity Inc. on how Pixar turned candid conversations, bold risks, and relentless curiosity into cinematic magic.

Today's lessons on creativity are coming from my notes on the book Creativity Inc.​

​Creativity Inc. shows how Pixar turned candid conversations, bold risks, and relentless curiosity into cinematic magic.

If you're serious about creating work that lasts, Creativity Inc. hands you the blueprint. It shows you how to lead with heart, fail forward, and build a creative culture that doesn't just survive, but sets the world on fire.

Here are 4 creative keys you can steal and start using today:

🗝️ Protect the Ugly Babies.

In Creativity Inc. original ideas are described as "ugly babies" in their early stages: "awkward and unformed, vulnerable and incomplete".

Every great idea is born ugly.

Don’t kill it because it doesn’t look like a masterpiece yet. It’s not supposed to.

Your job is to protect it from cynics, deadlines, and the ever-hungry Beast of productivity.

Nurture it. Feed it. Give it time to grow. Because today’s awkward sketch might be tomorrow’s classic.

🗝️ Make Failure a Co-Author, Not a Villain.

Failure is not a flaw. It’s the tuition for doing something new.

Don’t avoid it. Invite it in. Let it leave its muddy footprints on your process.

​Creativity Inc. says, "Mistakes aren’t a necessary evil. They aren’t evil at all. They are an inevitable consequence of doing something new (and, as such, should be seen as valuable; without them, we’d have no originality)."

So be wrong fast. Be wrong often. Then grow.

Great creative leaders don’t punish mistakes. They create safety nets so their teams can leap into the unknown.

You can’t play it safe and change the world.

Choose one.

🗝️ Hunt the Invisible. Self-Awareness is a Superpower.

The book says "uncover what is unseen and understand its nature" because blind spots are where dreams die silently.

Every creative leader must accept this paradox: you’re driving the ship, but your windshield is fogged.

The solution is to make it a ritual to ask, “What am I not seeing?”

Success can be a drug...it makes you deaf to the whispers of warning.

Stay curious. Stay humble. See beyond yourself.

🗝️ Return to the Beginner’s Mind.

Expertise is useful. But curiosity is how you grow.

Stay teachable. Stay open. Stay in love with learning.

According to Creativity Inc. this involves cultivating a "not know mind" or "beginner's mind," which means being open to the new, just as children are, and resisting the urge to cling to past successes or established methods.

Creativity isn’t a destination! It’s a practice. Approach each day like a student.

The second you think you’ve figured it all out, you stop growing.

Stay creative,

Dwayne