My photography hobby taught me to see things in detail, from different angles and perspectives and to walk around the subject matter. This art of seeing and taking photos led and made me more creative in many other ways I live my life.
Creativity cuts across the whole spectrum of life at various depths. By applying some creative thinking and action, we can add colour and fun to our life. At times, we make our lives easier and on a lucky note, we can earn more money. That is a big bonus!
The photo above is of the Prime Minister Office in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Most tourists will take photos next to the entrance. I took more effort, need to walk behind some trees and used the tree branches as a frame to snap the photo as shown above.
This is just a simple example that can be applied to many aspects of our daily life. The limitation is your imagination and willingness to do something different.
In December 2021, I compiled 64 photos of Putrajaya and converted them to Black & White Photobook and sold them as eBook at Shoppe.com. From my hobby, I turned my photos into a work of art and sell them to make money. As a business coach, I used my own personal experience to show my coachees how to turn their passion for art into a business. Similarly, this is what I am doing at The Medium to earn money from my writing. I have been blogging for more than twenty years and did not earn any money. Anyway, it was not my intention to earn money. I just wanted to share my knowledge and experience with my friends and fellow readers. I believe The Medium can offer a better platform to write and get more people to read my writings. Any earned income is a bonus for me.
Two years ago(2020), I was appointed by Malaysia National Art Gallery to coach our young artists to become entrepreneurs. From my experience engaging with them, they are very good with their artwork but they need to learn a lot more to market and sell their paintings and crafts. The first thing I did was to change their mindset-from artist to entrepreneur. The third batch of my artist-entrepreneurs is starting their transformation program from March 2022. By the way, I apply the concept of Change Your World using the Transformation Table method by John Maxwell.
Creativity is the new currency of the next decade. Everyone must be creative in this world engulfed with pandemic COVID-19. At the age of 69 years old I have to learn to ZOOM in order to do my coaching online. I also do Podcasting for those who attended my Project Management course. Engineers like me have no problems with technology but we have to be creative in their applications to meet our needs. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention. If not because of the pandemic COVID-19, I would not do any coaching online, Now, it is my new normal.
According to Sir Ken Robinson, the guru of creativity, our natural creativity is being eroded by our standardised system of education. For more information and knowledge on the subject matter, I recommend you to read his book Out of Our Minds-The Power of Being Creative.
