Creative Learning

I had dinner with a group of founders and business leaders.

The person sat on my left was a drummer in a ska band.

The person sat on my right played keyboards in a Norwegian wedding band.

And, back when blogs were a thing, I ran the third largest snowboard blog in the world, and I continue to write posts like these today.

We all had creative hobbies outside of our jobs.

Do creative hobbies help?

“If you’re gonna make connections which are innovative, you have to not have the same bag of experience as everyone else does.” - Steve Jobs

A Michigan State University study comparing 100 years of Noble Prize winning scientists with typical scientists of the same era, found that the winners were dramatically more likely to be involved in the arts.

Nobel prize winning scientists are on average 2.85 times more likely than the average scientist to have an artistic hobby:

Artistic Hobby	Odds for Nobel Prize winners relative to typical scientists
Music: playing an instrument, composing, conducting	2x greater
Arts: drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpting	7x
Crafts: woodwork, mechanics, electronics	7.5x
Writing: poetry, plays, novels, short stories, essays	12x
Performing: amateur actor, dancer, magician	22x

Source: Robert Root-Bernstein et al - Arts Foster Scientific Success: Avocations of Nobel, National Academy, Royal Society, and Sigma Xi Members - October 2008, Journal of Psychology of Science and Technology

Instead of writing I should have spent the time learning to pull rabbits out of hats!

The research showed that although the results of the creative arts can be domain specific, the creative process and the mental tools of creativity are shared.

The Nobel prize winning scientists were more exposed to intuitive tools of thinking, which allowed them to make more significant mental connections and breakthroughs.

Santiago Ramón y Cajal, the father of neuroscience, Nobel prize winner and accomplished illustrator, wrote, “To him who observes [scientists with artistic hobbies] from afar, it appears as though they are scattering and dissipating their energies, while in reality, they are channeling and strengthening them . . . The investigator would possess something of this happy combination of attributes: an artistic temperament which impels him to search for, and have the admiration of, the number, beauty, and harmony of things.”

Or, as another Noble prize winner, extraordinarily innovative physicist, and bongo player, Richard Feynmann said, “Study hard what interests you the most in the most undisciplined, irreverent and original manner possible.”

Image source: Wikipedia

Creative Learning

I’m no Nobel prize winner, but I gained so much from running my snowboard blog that ended up being directly useful in my career.

Among other things, I improved my writing, practiced basic website design, learned how to use Photoshop and increased my marketing skills.

Indirectly it was also an opportunity to practice creative thinking outside of work, more intensely than the roles I was doing at the time.

So I'll keep on writing and practicing creative thinking and I'd recommend it to anyone.

I’ll leave with a final quote from the ultimate polymath and renaissance man:

“Principles for the Development of a Complete Mind: Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses - especially learn how to see. Realise that everything connects to everything else.” - Leonardo da Vinci

What's your hobby?