Dan Pink and The Artist’s Life
Do you know about the work of Dan Pink? I first read his book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. In this book he talks about how creative types have something computers cannot duplicate and how that is what the future is going to need in order to survive and to keep economies going in a positive direction. He has now written another book called, Drive where he talks about what does and does not drive humans to do their best.
As many wise, popular writers and thinkers have been doing lately, Dan has given a talk on TED and I hope you will take the time to watch it here. Dan is funny and passionate. He talks about the division between what science knows and what business is doing.
How does this made a difference for artists? Dan talks about the need for AUTONOMY, MASTERY and PURPOSE in one’s work. Think about it, isn’t that the way artist’s like to work (in general)? Actually, as Dan talks if you think about it in relationship to artists, I think you will recognize the model he talks about. He gives good examples and his research actually upholds a lot of what we do and how we live.
So do you think artists and creative types can change the world? It sounds as though science is on our side…can you believe it?
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There are 10 Comments to "Dan Pink and The Artist’s Life"
Kim, just left a comment and touched the wrong button and zzzzzzzzzzzz it went away arrg.
Now we just have to persuade those who do not think out of the box to let us rule the world LOL:):) Have a great weekend, love, Andrea
Just wanted to let you know that I found this so very very interesting, His ideas and presentation about scientific studies actually proving that those famous incentives like promises of big money do not work when thinking out of the box is asked for. Wow. this makes us feel good, doesn’t it?
Hello Andrea,
I hate it when that happens, or the program will not allow you to post the comment for one reason or another. I am so sorry that happened here. I really do like the work he is doing because it helps me share things with people I have felt all along, but did not have the words to explain it or the scientific back up so many people seem to need. I think he is funny, too, but that may be lost in translation, I am not sure. I think the part that feels so good is that we have intuitively known this all along. It just makes you wonder what it takes to get some people out of the box??? I guess it goes back to that deal of change being so difficult for so many people…we have done it this way for so long and why should it change now? I guess we all have some of that, however in this life I lead change is the name of the game!
You have a wonderful weekend, too!
a quicky…love you!
Oh Yvette, I am so glad you found me again! I have missed you!
Ok I just listened. Very interesting. But I wonder, do you think people via school systems are sort of “trained” to be motivated by exterior motivations and to let go the interior. For one thing, it seems to me, exteriror motivations are easier to set up, money, fame or whatever and thus lure people into thinking these are the things we want. VS interior motivations sometimes you have to have silence and space for them to arise. For the most part in life I have not been lured by exterior motivations including buying a home, having a hustband etc. Being “normal.” I think I have lived pretty out of the box. But then again I wanted and got an MFA degree. Was that interior or exterior. Sometimes I think there might be a meld. The exterior desire for a degree yes, but also the interior desire to learn what the school was setting forth to be learned from.
I have often thought about motivation as sometimes it seems I have so little or at least right now and I am not sure what that means. also it so often seems my motivations are not like others’. Even if I pursue the same activities.
Anyway this was interesting Kim. Thanks Hope you are doing well.
Hello Suki! I knew you would have some wonderful insights to what Dan Pink has to say. I absolutely do believe so many people are “trained” to be motivated by the exterior…schools, parents, etc. Consider the infamous gold stars small children are often given, how about organized sports where one wins and one looses, and I am sure there are many, many other examples. I also think, because change is difficult for people/businesses, the majority do not want to accept what is being proven over and over, according to Mr. Pink. They find it difficult to believe this comes from within. I think you touched on one of the main reasons for this, too…it is the busy-ness vs the silence necessary for truly KNOWING what the interior says. What is truly amazing is it is these very people who live mainly on the exterior who believe in the research and that has been shown over and over and over here, but they still do not want to believe it. As artist who often listen to intuition, we “get” it naturally and do not necessarily need research to prove it to ourselves only to justify what we have known all along.
I agree with you by all indicators you have lived mostly outside the box, so to speak. Even when you achieved your MFA, it was on your own terms, right? In your program, you were probably allowed a bit more freedom than in some others you might have chosen and surely more than if you would have gone the MA route! If you listen to the “traditionalists” they would have something different to say about your MFA than you, I think.
I think you are right, and this is what I was trying to say in my very rough way, that the motivations experienced by creative types are not like the motivations of others or what they believe their motivations to be. It also seems to me that what he is explaining in this video is that maybe we/artist have had it right all along. I might add this is what makes it challenging for us to “fit-in” traditional business settings.
Thanks so much, Suki! You always give us so much more to think about!
I will have to listen. It really sounds up my alley. Oh, if right-brainers ruled the world. And were the majority in Congress.
Hi San, I do think you would like to hear what he has to say. I hear you loud and clear! It would be an amazing place to be sure.
Thanks so much, San!
I love TED! Autonomy, mastery, purpose (AMP) are why I teach at the college level. I teach at a community college with a small art department and I am just turned loose to teach what is ni the catalog in my own way. I adjust what I do to make my teaching more effective and I don’t often know how my teaching influences the lives of my students but from the little feed back I get I know it does.
A book which confirms AMP was written in response to the observation of artists. They were observed to be engaged and totally absorbed by their work and when the project was complete it was put away and the next project was done. The reward was not the product. The reward was the pleasure derived in working. The book if ‘Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.
Hello Davida! Isn’t TED wonderful? Yippee! Lucky you to be able to make this program your own and to allow the students to own it, I am sure! I find this to be wonderful news and actually going in the opposite direction of most programs in the US!
Yes, I do love Csikszentmihalyi’s Flow and his Creativity book is also excellent, if not a bit weighty! You very well might enjoy the work of Dan Pink, if you have not explored already. He has some valuable things to share, if we can now encourage those who need to hear it to do so.
Thanks so much for visiting me today. I hope you will return and join in here.