Where do you innovate?

image by 99u.com from Sarah Lewis: Find Your Private Domain

In her talk "Find Your Private Domain" for 99u, writer Sarah Lewis highlights the importance and even struggle for modern creators. She speaks to the question, "how do I get my work out there? But even more, how do I get the best version of my work, my creativity out to the world?"

Artistry and creativity take risking a bit of yourself. Even something small like blogging here makes one feel exposed and vulnerable. But when you take this topic further, how do great artists, writers, or creators get to a point of mastery and innovation? Lewis says it takes finding "a place of solitude" to find innovation; she uses Albert Einstein and Maya Angelou as examples here. What's in this place of solitude, this private domain according to Lewis, is a space where one does not feel critique of any kind. As a struggling perfectionist, I can speak to the value of such space. Yet when you find it, I believe this is where the best version of yourself lives--I might even argue that is where your authentic self lives. And if that is true, then isn't is true that most of us hide from authenticity? Or at least struggle with being authentic? I'm guilty of it. In doing so I think we take another risk, that of not letting our greatness show and that can risk not showing some of your greatest work.

What does your private domain look like?