Forget shares: why not invest in your own creative capital?

OPINION: Forget about investing in shares, property or managed funds for a moment. How about investing in your own creative capital?

We can so easily get caught up in a cycle of collecting our salary, paying the bills and (hopefully) putting aside a little bit each week towards investments or savings, sometimes we don't think about how we could be doing things differently.

Founder of Creativity Australia, Tania de Jong, says we need to expand our understanding of what it means to be creative, and to invest more in our own creative capital.

"Every human being is creative but quite often we put self-limiting beliefs on our own creativity. When we talk about creativity it should be about the way we think and solve problems - it's about doing things better, smarter, quicker."

Dictionary definitions of the word "invest" include ideas such as "put money into" and "expend money with the expectation of achieving a profit or material result." So why not apply these concepts to yourself and see what rewards you can reap with a bit of that "better, smarter, quicker"?

De Jong is an opera singer, entrepreneur and public speaker and says creativity research continues to reveal that creative minds and innovative actions are the most important qualities for success in business.

"Quite often I'll talk to a room of MBA graduates, and I'll say, 'Who's creative?' and only about one third of them put up their hands and I'm always really surprised because I think, 'How can they not think they're creative? It's like they are limiting their potential as leaders'," says de Jong.

"I believe creativity is the strategic tool of the 21st century and we need to learn to unlock that creative capital."

The best part of investing in your creative capital is that one of the ways to do it is to play - to enjoy yourself or do things that are outside your day-to-day routine.

My all-time favourite quote is by academic and mythologist Joseph Campbell (whose theories of the archetypal hero's journey inspired his friend, George Lucas, when writing the central plot for the Star Wars trilogy): "Follow your bliss". This advice might provide the best map for you when deciding how to invest your time, money or energy in your creative potential.

De Jong says it has been shown that creative thinking can improve the bottom line of a business (for example, many of Google's most successful ideas have sprung from the company's policy of giving staff one day a week to work on their own pet projects). So why not see how it can improve the bottom line of your personal finance strategy?

Here are some of de Jong's tips for investing in your creative capital:

- talk with a broad range of people, diversity is the best way of generating creativity and innovation - the more you speak with people who aren't like you, the more you learn about life;

- ask lots of questions (of yourself and of others) and find out what the gaps are or how you can make things work better;

- nurture or pamper yourself: if we feel better about ourselves we feel a greater sense of self-esteem and are able to express ourselves and our ideas more fluidly;

- push yourself out of your comfort zone: do something - anything - you've never done before to help you push the boundaries of what you think is possible; and

- play!

- © Fairfax NZ News