The essence of creativity is the ability to channelise imagination into expression and build from it something new and possibly ingenious. Whether it is an art form or a scientific invention or discovering a new way of doing the same old thing...it begins in the mind, says Shah Rukh Khan
It is not everyday that the badshah of Bollywood agrees to deliver a speech. That, too, at India’s premier management institute — IIM. Here’s what he said:
The essence of creativity is the ability to channelise imagination into expression and build from it something new and possibly ingenious. Whether it is an art form or a scientific invention or discovering a new way of doing the same old thing...it begins in the mind. A mind that does not function within the framework of boundaries but constantly searches beyond them is a mind that is able to create anew. The cornerstone of leadership, I believe, is nothing more than cultivating the discipline and courage to nurture and sustain such a mind while constantly calling the bluff of the illusory limits imposed by life.
See I am 50. An age where you most likely are making retirement plans, not romantic plans. But here I am still coochie cooing girls my children’s age. And no they don’t look up to me, actually they can’t because they are all taller than me, they treat me as their age/equal having been put in the position of someone who is a romantic hero, I have cultivated a belief that I can love them back as beautifully as any man can age notwithstanding. Though I must admit girls having a bit of a father fixation, comes in handy with my endeavors.
leaders are able to assimilate experience in order to reframe the world around themselves on their own terms. They use the very structure of life to dismantle it. They are not afraid to question, to imagine, to dream and to believe. They are also not afraid to act even if their actions might not result in success.
There is an old song I always turn to, when I am faced with adversity. Being a public figure most of my actions and intentions are questioned, reviewed and sometimes loved and at times even distorted. Ranging from praising my sexiness to questioning my sexuality, I get it all. But whenever I feel thwarted I think of this song — hum to act karega. Duniya se nahidarega. Chahye ye zamaana kahe humko deewana kahe hum toh act karega.
Many books have been written on leadership skills, on methods and models for it but in my view, it really isn’t all that complicated. To be able to dream unencumbered, to imagine and hang on to a boundless mind filled with ideas so that you never stop renewing yourself and the world around you whether it is your inner world, your consciousness or your outer world that encompasses your profession and your relationships is essential to leadership.
But dreaming is not enough, its also important to be able to dismantle the old, the frameworks that are laid out before you, the ideas that you yourself cling to, the ones that hold you back and prevent you from growing. It is by disassembling your fears of failing, of losing (not just things, but people and positions), and most of all-of change that you can be truly creative not just in the things you choose to do, but in the way you view your part in the world you inhabit.
I meet many successful people in the world of business and I often find that while their ideas are very clear, the way they speak of them is oddly dispassionate. The madness and passion are missing. I get the sad impression that business often becomes numerical: about millions and targets or it ends up being so goal driven that there is a stark loss of inspiration from it. I think the emphasis on organisational goals and efficiency has clouded the poetry of creating. Perhaps because of the artistic basis of the work I do, it is difficult for me to relate to this starkness. I feel it lacks life. Creation cannot be a managerial concept/notion, no matter how good the idea is, it has to be an imaginerial conception. To lead means to inspire, and you cannot inspire people mechanically or through numerical. Inspiration is an emotional construct. To make people believe in anything, whether it is a product, a story, an idea, or you: you need to connect their ability to imagine and dream with your own.
Diligence is imperative to both creativity and leadership. Making the mistake of thinking that your dreams will take flight without you having to flap madly at those wings to get up into the sky is plain silly. In my experience, its great to delegate, but there's no short cut to working hard. To know and to understand what you are doing, to be open to learning about it and from it, every single moment requires diligence. It requires work. If you want to excel at something there shouldn’t be a single person around you who can claim to be more familiar with its mechanics than you are.
Its non negotiable to strive and to be familiar with your trade. life remains ordinary if you are unable to sustain the capacity to work hard on your dreams. If you aren’t determined to get there — you won’t. And this is a paradoxical thing because I’ve heard many people say that you need to know where you’re going to be determined about reaching there but it hasn’t been the case with me. I never knew my destination, I can’t even claim to know it today…Now that I am on the cover of Forbes India, is that where I wanted to be as a businessman. My IPl team has won the championship and its profitable, is that the dream I had for a sporting franchise venture.
I have a film running in a cinema hall for the last twenty years…should that be the attempt in terms of achievement for my next film. No I don’t think so. I believe goals actually limit our ambitions and desire. I don’t mean that don’t have goals, but call them milestones…think of them as a passing moment of excellence and keep on striving harder for a place which can’t be defined or confined by names or numbers. I have never set goals but I have truly never done a single thing that I wasn't determined to do the best. I had no idea where it would take me for the most part of it, but I had the idea that I would do whatever it was with a determination that would scare everyone else away.
No matter how hard we work, however, leadership implies being prepared for disaster. And it will come. If it doesn’t hit you like a tsunami washing away your house and home...it'll show up some other way, as failure maybe, or then by taking away something (or someone) you loved and believed in... so what are you going to do about itIJ You can cry and wallow. I do that often and I am not ashamed to admit it. I do that in a special corner reserved for tears in my huge golden bathroom.
Somewhere between the Jacuzzi and the steam room, I sit on the floor and shed huge tears of self pity, persecution and how the world doesn’t understand my genius and effort….but then I take a hot and cold shower and walk out wearing my limited edition cologne… ready to embrace disaster. So a bit of wallowing and crying is ok… but the thing to understand is that if you learn how to welcome disaster you overcome it. So what if everything gets turned on its head, change your perspective- do a hand stand- don't sit there staring at the ruins, start getting bits of you together and rebuilding yourself. That’s what leadership is about after all.
Besides, a ‘perfect life’ is a farce. God isn’t making utopian ad films and screening them on the clouds to sell it’s USP to you. It’s a man made idea and we,re buying into it all the time. Actually, there is nothing more beautiful than the imperfection of life. Creativity is about taking this imperfection and translating into something beauteous. In my trade, life serves as a fertile ground for innovation and ideas. We use its imperfection every moment. In fact there is really nothing that allows us to create better or to live better than trouble so why not embrace it and embrace ourselves too in the bargain. And while we are embracing, lets embrace destiny, too.
To conclude, I’d like to borrow from my latest endeavour of creativity — Dilwale and say that unless you live by the heart, unless you are a dilwale, none of this will truly translate into the splendour that life is capable of unfolding before you. The mind is the seed of creativity but the heart is the soil. That seed cannot grow without an open heart. To be able to love, to give, to share, to nurture, to take others along on your journey with as much goodwill for them as you have for yourself is the basis of all creative endeavour, of all real success, of all happiness and of true leadership. If you close your heart to the world, if you choose to live your life on parameters that let you forget how to love, you will dishonor life and disallow it from honouring you. There is no greater creativity in life or leadership than the ability to touch each moment that you are living with the beauty of living it by your heart, to give back to life the fullness that it has had the generosity to give to you.