A friend of mine just started lecturing some second year university students on business principles, management, entrepreneurship and creativity, and after prepping for her class, found the textbook to be somewhat different to actual life (she’s pretty successful herself, as an entrepreneur, so she was well equipped to see the shortcomings in the textbook). Who would’ve thought that a university textbook would be different to reality?

Anyways, in the interest of making her new students like her, and knowing I’m a sucker for anything related to new tech, inspiration, entrepreneurship, creativity etc., and that I watch a freakin’ kakload (that’s South African slang for a lot) of Youtube videos on that stuff(and may have dabbled in building some cool businesses, too) she asked me to send her my favourite videos on the subject and relate them back to what’s actually going on in the world. Needless to say, that was my afternoon gone, but I certainly did enjoy taking the red pill.

So, if you’re interested in my shortlist I prepped for her, here it is (the B-Index is the rating system used here. I made it up as I felt about each piece)

Blog posts:

Anything by Tim ferris is worth a read / listen. His podcasts are epic with incredible people and can be hilarious if he’s been drinking before/during making it:

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2007/08/25/the-creativity-elixir-is-genius-on-demand-possible/ — finding your creative zone and inducing it at will

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2016/01/13/eric-weinstein/ — podcast — worth a listen

http://fourhourworkweek.com/2014/09/09/peter-thiel/ — podcast with Peter Thiel

Videos:

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity — Sir Ken Robinson — very humourous take on how schools are designed to kill creativity, but in it are jewels of wisdom in creativity — 10/10

Jason Silva — all good stuff for a quick espresso shot of practical philosophy in modern times:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUOJFB6ZGQQ&ebc=ANyPxKpLWS7iE9N5tuwQN41NgW74JUYew-HMwbS9xvuoy9CXTLZzaUSm_2CBbQns5FLEi7_ShQlzgwOOJqvTFnXDI9cFxMnSLQ — Hacking your flow state

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOVmVMJEhg8 — the ecstacy of curiosity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US18sczUnTk — creativity is madness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NugRZGDbPFU — where good ideas come from — 9/10 — presentation drawing style video.. and here’s him presenting at a TED talk on same subject:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0af00UcTO-c&ebc=ANyPxKourdaDI-MAZn3V0z2J-GTFLNNftD-s37OLPMePy0Kv1yHWiHI6WATpATzNRUuD35_TCZUlIg6TkBS1-RuHeEGP8UJdRA

http://www.ted.com/talks/tony_robbins_asks_why_we_do_what_we_do — just all round brilliant 8/10 — it’s not exactly on the subject, but if you can find out what drives you, you’re probably going to be more creative

http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action — 9/10 about how people buy why we do something, not what we do or how we do it. So in creativity, finding the why can be the force function to greatness

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc — Steve Jobs stanford commencement speech — 10/10 just fucking awesome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikAb-NYkseI — Neil Gaiman — epic commencement speech — rate this one 11/10 — this was the beginning of the B-Index breaking down as I got more inspired reviewing these videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euxJhgYZXL8 — Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba. Insights are exceptionally practical. 10/10.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FMqaPmjAoE — Elon Musk, my all time favourite human being (besides Wifey, kids, immediate family, close friends etc. Ok, he’s pretty far down the list, but he’s still an amazing dude) 10/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FMqaPmjAoE — Elon Musk again.. shorter one with nuggets broken into different clips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dTQWQXhSJU — Tim Ferris and Niel Strauss on CreativeLive. Very good conversation with boatloads of good tips on creativity.. 10/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPCp5xsP-vk — Alan Watts, what do you desire.. very inspirational and talks briefly about forgetting about the money and just doing what you would do if money were not part of it.. 10/10 for a short snippet

http://www.ted.com/talks/ray_kurzweil_on_how_technology_will_transform_us — looking into the future, what creative paths are left for us to follow when technology is accelerating at exponential pace… why bother rating, it’s on this list so just watch it.

https://youtu.be/vlCb-1NM8mY — Exponential Technologies. Peter Diamandis. BRILLIANT. 12/10. Clearly, I should have started with this one on the rating system before setting up the B-Index.

https://www.ted.com/talks/jeremy_heimans_what_new_power_looks_like?language=en — New power vs Old power is a trend to watch carefully. https://hbr.org/2014/12/understanding-new-power

“It’s not worth doing something unless you were doing something that someone, somewhere, would much rather you weren’t doing.” Terry Pratchet.

So, in summary, the underlying 2 trends to focus creativity and innovation on for exponential growth are:

New power vs Old power

Social Entrepreneurship

To highlight this, take Elon Musk as an example. He’s open sourcing all his design. New Power. He’s tackling some of the major problems on the planet, while designing exceptional products that actually help fix the planet and make him money at the same time.

Over and out,

B

P.S. If you like this, do you want more?