John Cleese: “Nothing Will Stop You From Being Creative So Effectively as The Fear of Making a Mistake.”

John Cleese explores the surprising habits behind creativity, originality, and breakthrough thinking. With humor and insight, he explains why the most creative people tolerate uncertainty longer, avoid rushed decisions, and embrace playfulness. This episode will inspire you to slow down, think deeper, and create space for your best ideas to emerge. Want Ad-Free Episodes? Join QOD Club and hear zero ads inside our Circle community. Plus, book clubs, mentorship calls, weekly business trainings, and new likeminded friends. Get started for only $9. Source: John Cleese's Legendary 1991 Speech About CreativityHosted by Sean CroxtonFollow me on InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. So you've got to risk saying things that are silly and illogical and wrong. And the best way to get the confidence to do that is to know that while you're being creative, nothing is wrong. There's no such thing as a mistake. And any drivel may lead to the breakthrough.

• 0:41Speaker 01

  Welcome back to the Quote of the Day Show. I am your host, Shawn Croxton, of seancroxton.com. Thank you so much for tuning in. We've got actor, author, and screenwriter John Cleese wrapping up the week. Today's QOD is this. Nothing will stop you from being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. He's going to reveal three of his five factors that will make your life more creative. This talk blew my mind, especially the first part. Because last year, I was kind of down on myself. Last year was a really bad year. And I was down on myself because I made a string of really bad decisions. Where I'm like, dude, seriously? Like, what is this?

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Like, why do you keep making bad decisions? And there is this Napoleon Hill quote that a lot of successful people live by. It goes like this. Successful people make decisions quickly and change them slowly. I'm starting to rethink that. I'm starting to think that that's not really a good idea. And you'll find out why in just a second. John Cleese is coming up.

• 1:52Speaker 00

  I was always intrigued that one of my Monty Python colleagues, who seemed to be, to me, more talented than I was, did never produce scripts as original as mine. And I watched for some time, and then I began to see why. If he was faced with a problem and fairly soon saw a solution, he was inclined to take it, even though, I think, he knew the solution was not very original. Whereas if I was in the same situation, although I was sorely tempted to take the easy way out and finish by 5 o'clock, I just couldn't. I'd sit there with the problem for another hour and a quarter

• 2:37Speaker 00

  and by sticking at it, would, in the end, almost always, come up with something more original. It was that simple. My work was more creative than his simply because I was prepared to stick with the problem longer. So imagine my excitement when I found that this was exactly what McKinnon found in his research. He discovered that the most creative professionals always played with the problem for much longer before they tried to resolve it. Because they were prepared to tolerate that slight discomfort and anxiety that we all experience when we haven't solved a problem. You know what I mean? If we have a problem

• 3:21Speaker 00

  and we need to solve it, until we do, we feel it inside us, a kind of internal agitation, a tension, or uncertainty that makes us just plain uncomfortable. And we want to get rid of that discomfort. So in order to do so, we take a decision. Not because we're sure it's the best decision, but because taking it will make us feel better. Well, the most creative people have learned to tolerate that discomfort for much longer. And so, just because they put in more pondering time, their solutions are more creative.

• 3:59Speaker 00

  Now, the people I find it hardest to be creative with are people who need all the time to project an image of themselves as decisive. And who feel that to create this image, they need to decide everything very quickly and with a great show of confidence. Well, this behaviour, I suggest sincerely, is the most effective way of strangling creativity at birth. But please note, I'm not arguing against real decisiveness. I'm a hundred percent in favour of taking a decision when it has to be taken and then sticking to it while it's being implemented. What I'm suggesting to you is that before you take a decision,

• 4:43Speaker 00

  you should always ask yourself the question, "When does this decision have to be taken?" And having answered that, you defer the decision until then in order to give yourself maximum pondering time,

• 4:59Speaker 00

  which will lead you to the most creative solution. And if while you're pondering, somebody accuses you of indecision, say, "Look, baby cakes, I don't have to decide till Tuesday, and I'm not chickening out of my creative discomfort by taking a snap decision before then, that's too easy." So, to summarise, the third factor that facilitates creativity is time, giving your mind as long as possible to come up with something original. Now, the next factor, number four, is confidence.

• 5:40Speaker 00

  When you're in your space-time oasis, getting into the open mode, nothing will stop you being creative so effectively as the fear of making a mistake. Now, if you think about play, you'll see why. True play is experiment. "What happens if I do this? What would happen if we did that? What if?" The very essence of playfulness is an openness to anything that may happen, a feeling that whatever happens, it's okay. So you cannot be playful if you're frightened that moving in some direction will be wrong, something you shouldn't have done.

• 6:23Speaker 00

  I mean, you're either free to play, or you're not. As Alan Watts puts it, "You can't be spontaneous within reason."

• 6:35Speaker 00

  So you've got to risk saying things that are silly and illogical and wrong. And the best way to get the confidence to do that is to know that while you're being creative, nothing is wrong. There's no such thing as a mistake, and any drivel may lead to the breakthrough. And now, the last fact, the fifth, humour. Well, I happen to think the main evolutionary significance of humour is that it gets us from the closed mode to the open mode quicker than anything else.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  I think we all know that laughter brings relaxation and that humour makes us playful, yet how many times have important discussions been held where really original and creative ideas were desperately needed to solve important problems, but where humour was taboo because the subject being discussed was so serious? This attitude seems to me to stem from a very basic misunderstanding of the difference between serious and solemn. Now, I suggest to you that a group of us could be sitting around after dinner, discussing

• 7:53Speaker 00

  matters that were extremely serious, like the education of our children, or our marriages, or the meaning of life, and I'm not talking about the film, and we could be laughing, and that would not make what we were discussing one bit less serious.

• 8:10Speaker 00

  Celemmity, on the other hand, I mean, I don't know what it's for. I mean, what is the point of it? The two most beautiful memorial services that I've ever attended, both had a lot of humour, and it somehow freed us all, and made the services inspiring and cathartic. But solemnity, it serves pomposity. And the self-important always know at some, some level of their consciousness that their egotism is going to be punctured by humour. That's why they see it as a threat, and so dishonestly pretend that their deficiency

• 8:53Speaker 00

  makes their views more substantial, when it only makes them feel bigger.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Now, humor is an essential part of spontaneity, an essential part of playfulness, an essential part of the creativity that we need to solve problems, no matter how serious they may be. So, when you set up a space-time oasis, giggle all you want. And there, ladies and gentlemen, are the five factors which you can arrange to make your lives more creative.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  That was John Cleese wrapping up the week. His website is johncleeselive.com. You can watch today's talk on YouTube. It's called John Cleese's Legendary 1991 Speech About Creativity. All right, my friend. It's been a darn good week of clips. Hope you enjoyed them as much as I did. Hope you have a fantastic weekend. And I'll see you on Monday. I'm out. Peace.