I was reading a book by a chess grandmaster who became a Brazillian Jujitsu champion, Josh Waitzkin, about how to learn. Being a champion in two completely different fields gave him a unique perspective. How did he start over and learn an entirely new skill?

He said that learning new skills was like being a hermit crab. If you don’t already know, hermit crabs don’t grow their own shells. They take abandoned shells from other animals and use them to protect the soft and delicious parts of their body from predators. And it works well.

However, as the crab grows, it has to find new shells and, each time it switches shells it’s vulnerable and exposed.

A crab can stay in a smaller shell for a long time by starving itself and growing slowly into the shape of the shell which will eventually cover just a tiny part of the exposed portion. Not a good long term plan, but definitely the safest route in the short term.

Every time you try something new, you’re like a crab moving to a new shell. Running naked and unprotected between your old self and your new self. But, to grow, you have to take that chance.

A lot of people never take that chance. Once they find their safe shell, they stay there and make an effort not to outgrow that shell. Are you starving yourself so you don’t have to change?

To grow quickly, it means changing shells often. That means leaving yourself vulnerable to being a beginner, admitting you don’t know things, and failing at something. The stakes are probably lower than you think. You might damage your pride or be embarrassed for a while, but it isn’t life and death.

Take a chance on vulnerability today!

Should I do it? Should I start this long project? Am I being selfish? Does it make sense?

It’s almost like a tic with some people. Instead of following their instincts, they have to check out their next move with all the people around them. They ask their best friend, barista, significant other, strangers on Facebook or whatever other person crosses their path that day.

But, they really don’t care about the opinions of the other people. They want someone, or everyone, to say “yes.” Yes, you should do that. What a great idea!

This works well if you have a supportive friend who trusts your instincts more than you do. They’ll say yes no matter what because they know that if you’re asking them, it’s something you’ve thought about.

But, in most situations, revealing your half-formed idea to the world will cause it to wither and shrink. You’ll get an array of opinions, some valid and some crazy.

If you want to take a sculpting course at the community college down the street, don’t ask other people whether you should. Remember that C- you got in art class in High School? You can’t even arrange flowers, and you want to sculpt clay? Look at you, thinking you’re all fancy. You’re probably trying to get out of buying Christmas gifts next year, and we’ll all get “sculptures” from your class.

That’s when asking other people turns into justifying all your self-doubts and inertia about starting new things. You can say to yourself, I wanted to do it, but everyone else made fun of me so, I didn’t. For the rest of your life, you can think about what could have been.

Should I write a novel about a journalist who gives up her job at a newspaper to make artisanal ice cream called, One More Scoop? Who cares what anyone else thinks? Do it!

Since so many people say that they do their best thinking in the shower, it only makes sense that shampoo holds one of the keys to creativity.

But David, I can hear you say, shampoo is just liquid soap for your hair.  What could a bottle of Pantene have to do with increasing my creativity?

Well, it’s not the actual shampoo but some marketing on the bottle.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

That simple instruction contains a lot of metaphorical wisdom. (In realistic terms, unless you shampoo only once a week, you probably don’t need to repeat. It’s something they made up to sell more shampoo.)

People look at creativity as a beginning, middle and an end, but it’s not. It’s an endless loop of new projects and ideas. Too many people get stuck on having an idea (lathering) or overwhelmed with the process (rinsing) and never get to starting a new project (repeating).

Lather people have an idea that they’ve held onto for years. It’s their pet idea and they aren’t willing to let go of it and move on to the next one. A lot of  latherers want to talk endlessly about that idea, but never do anything about it. You’ll know someone is in lather territory when she brings her pet idea up and all her friends groan.

Rinsers get caught up in the process. They can’t start writing their novel until they have the right laptop to use in the corner of a quiet coffee shop while they’re wearing their lucky sweater. His 50th take of that song is going to be way better than his 49th, maybe he should book another week in the studio. For rinsers, there’s always one more thing they need before they can complete what they’re doing.

Repeaters are the winners when it comes to creativity. Their skills improve. They have tons of completed projects that they can use as springboards to greater things. It’s hard work being a repeater, because you know that any pleasure you take in an accomplishment is only a short break before the next project starts.

Most repeaters I know have multiple projects going on at the same time so that if one gets stalled out or delayed they can switch over to another one. But, they are also always finishing something.

Being a repeater means letting go of perfectionism. It means opening yourself up for criticism because you have to tell something is finished. It means having a stack of failures way bigger than people who never finish. It also brings huge rewards and will change your life forever.

The next time you find yourself stuck while thinking in the shower, just read the instructions on the back of a shampoo bottle and get inspired.

Just think how clean your hair will be!

Creative people sometimes start out isolated and different. No matter how positive and full of energy we are, we still stand out from everyone around us because we want to change their environment. We are full of ideas and questions things. The vast majority of people expend their energy making sure that nothing changes, so when someone creative appears, they are diminished and ignored. The urge to fit in and be like other people is strong and for a lot people, that leads to their creative side being completely submerged. They would rather be someone they aren’t than be lonely.

However, sometimes you get a signal that no matter how weird or different you are, there is someone out there just like you. That signal is an important indicator of the path you are about to go down. For some people it’s a book or a movie, sometimes it’s a person you meet or a specific location. Whatever it is, it’s an indication that it’s ok to be yourself.

For me it was the summer of 1979 and and I was 10 years old. I was riding to Graceland shopping center on my blue BMX bike with a banana seat. I made my way through all my usual stops — the hobby shop, the toy store — when I noticed a new store. It was a music store and I didn’t know anything about music. I hadn’t had much exposure to music beyond TV and music class at school. My parents played the occasional Simon and Garfunkel record and some Peter, Paul and Mary, but most of the music in our house came from a tinny radio in the garage as my father worked on Volkswagens.

I walked into the shop without any thought of actually buying something. It was more of an exploration to see what it would be like inside. I knew I enjoyed the Beatles, but not much beyond that. I wandered the aisles without direction, soaking in the hyperreal fluorescent ambiance and avoiding the vaguely punk cashiers, when a cassette tape caught my eye. It was a peculiar figure wearing a hat with the letters D-E-V-O next to him, and for some reason, I felt an instant connection to it. I was drawn to it. I knew, in that moment, that whoever had decided to put that image on that case was talking to directly to me. He was whispering a message directly in my ear.

“You are not alone.”

That’s what it said. Those words formed in my head. No exaggeration or hyperbole involved. If I made a movie of it I would animate the lips of the man on the tape saying them to me. Seeing this album cover was love at first sight – not me loving it, but it loving me.

I bought it, took it home and listened to it over and over again on my dad’s handheld, monophonic tape recorder. I memorized it. I was so unsophisticated that I didn’t even look for other albums by the group or try to look up any information about them at all. I didn’t even know that “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” was a cover of a Rolling Stones song.

For at least six months, all that existed of those mythical creatures “Devo” was that one gray cassette tape in a cracked, clear plastic case. Even the album name spoke to that question of connection. Are we not men? We are DEVO! I included myself in that “we” as I sang along.

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When he was asked about that album cover, Mark Mothersbaugh, one of the founding forces of Devo, told this story: