Creativity

Anybody can toss their hat in the air. But few have dared to make it actually fly.

We lose the freedom to be human.

In a world without digital privacy, even if you have done nothing wrong other than think differently, you begin to censor yourself. Not entirely at first. Just a little, bit by bit. To risk less, to hope less, to imagine less, to dare less, to create less, to try less, to talk less, to think less.

The Berlin Wall limited my opportunities. It quite literally stood in my way. However, there was one thing which this wall couldn't do. It couldn't impose limits on my inner thoughts. My personality, my imagination, my dreams and desires — prohibitions or coercion couldn't limit any of that.

It would be better to fail doing something challenging, something worthwhile, something I was excited to show the world, than to succeed doing something safe that wouldn't actually inspire much at all.

To have the opportunity to live a creative life, to have even the possibility of the opportunity to live a creative life, is a gift.

When you stop looking — or when you see only what you want — as a human being you become a stenographer.

Ideas don't come out fully formed. They only become clear as you work on them. You just have to get started.

This act of choosing — the stories we tell versus the stories we leave out — will reverberate across the rest of your life.

There will be blind alleys and one-night wonders and soul-crushing jobs and wake-up calls and crises of confidence and moments of transcendence when you are walking down the street and someone will thank you for telling your story because it resonated with their own.

Construction is far more difficult because it requires the capacity to imagine something new and better, and the willingness to exert ourselves toward building it, even at the risk of failure.

Say Yes. Say Yes, And… and create your own destiny.