Stroking the Snake

Building your creative confidence after a battering a step by step process. Creative thinker David Kelley shows us how. 

Along with his brother, Tom, David Kelley has developed a series of strategies to get people past what they believe to be the '4 fears' that hold most of us back: 

Are these 4 Fears holding you back creatively?

Kelley - who is the founder of Stanford University’s d.school which helps students develop their creativity as well as co-founder of the award-winning design and innovation consultancy, IDEO (pronounced 'eye-dee-oh') - and his brother identified the four fears as: 

1. Fear of the messy unknown
   
2. Fear of being judged
   
3. Fear of the first step
   
4. Fear of losing control

Kelley's ideas are partly inspired by the work of Albert Bandura, a world-renowned psychologist and Stanford professor who helped people conquer lifelong snake phobias by guiding them through a series of increasingly demanding interactions ending them with actually touching a snake.

Watch: David Kelley's talk on dealing with fear (above)
Listen to: Podcast interview with Kelley about the Four Fears
There is also a transcript of the interview.
Read: Creative Confidence - the new book by David and Tom Kelley
Ask:

• What is my ‘snake’?
  
• What steps would I need to take in order to be able to touch it?
  
• What is the first step?
  
• When will I begin?

Comment: Can you identify any snakes in your own life? What are your proposed strategies for dealing with them?