Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
I'm Connor from polyglossa.com and you're listening to episode 23 of the Listening Time podcast.
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So today, I'm going to talk about creativity and innovation.
These two topics are related to each other.
And they're both important.
So I thought they would be good topics to talk about in today's episode.
And before we start, also remember to sign up for our 1 listening practice seminars at polyglossacom.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so first let's talk about creativity.
First of all, what does creativity mean?
Well, here's one definition.
The use of imagination or original ideas.
So when you're using your imagination or you're coming up with original ideas, you're being creative.
When I use the phrase come up with, I'm saying that you have a thought or you have a new idea.
So if I say he came up with a plan, I'm saying that he had an original idea for a plan.
So this is creativity.
There are many types of activities and things that involve creativity.
For example, art.
I talked about this in the previous episode.
Art requires a lot of creativity because you need to create something from nothing.
So of course, that involves the use of your imagination or your own ideas to create something and express yourself through that art.
Also, games can be creative too.
For example, when children invent new games and they think of new ways to play.
This involves a lot of creativity, of course.
They have to invent these games from their imagination.
And in general, new ideas involve creativity.
So if I think of an original idea, I'm being creative with my mind.
So just thinking can be creative.
Thinking can involve creativity.
And then also inventions and innovation involve creativity.
Of course, we're going to talk about innovation in just a little bit.
So let's talk about some of the benefits of being creative.
So first of all, creativity allows you to be a critical thinker.
When we say critical thinker or critical thinking in English, we're talking about being able to think deeply about concepts and problems and be able to process these ideas in our mind.
This is critical thinking.
So if you're a creative person, you can usually think critically about different topics, right?
You might not just accept what people tell you.
You might not just say, okay, that's the truth.
That's right.
You might actually question that idea.
And you might try to test it for yourself and think critically about it to arrive at the truth.
This is being creative and thinking critically.
Another benefit of being creative is being able to solve problems.
Of course, this is related to critical thinking as well.
So, more specifically, if you're presented with a problem, you'll be able to think of ways to solve it.
If you have creativity, you're able to think about multiple different ways, multiple different ideas that might help you come to a solution to solve your problem.
That's another benefit.
Another benefit of being creative is that it helps you relieve stress.
This is an interesting one.
This is one that I found when I was searching online about the benefits.
I didn't really think of this as a benefit, but now that I kind of think this through a little bit more, it makes sense.
Because oftentimes you feel stuck, you feel like you have a lot of stress and you can't release your mind from this stress.
But if you're creative, it might help you find ways to release this stress and to help your mind think about other things or deal with this stress in different ways.
I think there are many ways that being creative might help your mind escape from stress.
So that's another benefit.
And another one is that it helps your confidence level.
So if you're more creative, you often have more self-confidence.
This is probably because if you're creative, you're more independent, you can think for yourself, you can analyze concepts in different ways and you feel more confident about your own ideas, about your own self.
So that's another advantage.
And then lastly, it also gives you a sense of freedom.
If you're creative, you can think about many different things and consider many different ideas.
And you're not limited to just one idea or one structure.
It allows you to feel more free in your life.
So how do we foster creativity?
The word foster means to promote something, to help something grow.
So if I say foster creativity, I'm saying how do we help creativity grow?
How do we promote creativity?
So the first thing that you'll want to do if you want to foster creativity, is to start at a young age.
This is really important because when we're children, we have the opportunity to be creative and train our creativity right.
In certain cultures, creativity is encouraged in children and, And these children usually invent many different games and they're involved in many different forms of art and they can learn a lot about the world around them.
And they can just create things in general.
They're a little more free in that sense.
But in other cultures, creativity might not be that encouraged.
So maybe children are expected to do things in only one way, right?
They're not expected to create and come up with new ideas.
And so this is a big distinction.
This is a big difference between different cultures.
And so some cultures have more creative children on average, and other cultures have less creative children.
So that's one way to foster creativity is to start at a young age.
And, of course, just encouraging children to play outside in general.
So many children nowadays don't go outside.
They stay inside all day.
They play video games.
I'm not saying video games are evil, but when you play them all day, this is not good for children's brains.
And of course, children... nowadays have access to the internet and all these different devices.
The word device refers to some type of electronic machine like a cell phone or a tablet or something like that.
So children have access to all of these things.
So they don't play outside a lot.
Some parents might not see the danger of that.
But one of the disadvantages of not playing outside is that children don't explore the world and express their creativity in the real world.
When I was a child, I played outside all the time, every day, and I did all kinds of creative things out in the real world.
I learned from the nature around me and I had a lot of fun just exploring and being creative outdoors.
And then one other way that we can foster creativity is to do some type of art, like I talked about in the last episode.
I did a little bit of art when I was younger.
I drew and I came up with different scenes and comics to draw and it was a good way to express my creativity.
But nowadays, I don't do a lot of art.
I don't do any art, really.
But I should, because it can help me train my creativity.
So maybe I'll do this after recording this episode.
Maybe I'll think about some type of art that would be good for me to do.
But for children it's very important that they have the chance to explore art if they're interested in it.
Maybe they're not interested in art, and that's okay, but some children really like art, so it would be a good idea to give them the opportunity to explore that and to develop their creativity.
So, lastly, what are the consequences of not being creative?
Well, if you're not allowed to be creative... usually you have a harder time expressing yourself.
So you don't have many ways to express your feelings or ideas if you don't have creativity.
And this can cause a lot of stress, right?
It can cause you to lose confidence in yourself.
That's.
Another disadvantage is that you might not feel very confident and you might not feel like you have the right words or the right ideas to present to other people and you might have a lower view of yourself.
That could be another disadvantage.
And you might not be able to think critically in general.
So if you're not creative, you're probably not going to think deeply about different topics or find different ways to solve problems.
So that could also be a disadvantage.
And then lastly, you probably won't have a lot of innovation in society if the society doesn't allow for creativity.
So now let's transition into the other topic, which is innovation.
What is innovation?
Innovation is the act of making changes to something already established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas or products.
This is innovation.
So normally, when we think of innovation, we think of technology, right?
That's probably the most obvious form of innovation that we see today.
But innovation can also take on other forms.
For example, you might innovate in your business structure and change the way that you operate your company.
That could be a form of innovation.
And, for example, you can be innovative on the job, in your own career.
In your job, you can deal with challenges or problems in an innovative way and a way that other people haven't dealt with these challenges in the past.
So there are many ways to be innovative in your life.
So let's just talk about a few examples of technological innovation.
So one of the greatest innovations of all time was Johannes Gutenberg's printing press.
The printing press is the machine that prints text on paper, right?
So in the past, we didn't have very efficient printing presses.
And so it took a long time to make copies of texts and books and things like that.
But Gutenberg's printing press was completely revolutionary.
When we say that something is revolutionary, This means that it completely changed everything, right?
So it was revolutionary because with each press, we could print 3,600 pages per day.
So that was a huge improvement over the printing presses before Gutenberg's printing press.
So that innovation was extremely important and we consider it one of the most important innovations of all time because it allowed very important texts to be copied and printed and distributed all around the world.
For example, the Bible.
Before this printing press, the Bible was usually hand-copied.
It was done by manuscript, which means that the people wrote it by hand.
And it took a long time to copy the whole Bible and distribute it.
But with this printing press we were able to make many, many copies of the Bible and other texts very easily and very fast.
So you can imagine the difference that that made. that innovation made.
So another form of innovation was paper currency.
The word currency refers to the money that you carry in your wallet.
So the currency in the US is the dollar.
So paper currency was used, I think, only in China a long time ago, since the 9th century, but it wasn't used in Europe until the late 17th century.
So before paper currency, people had to exchange goods.
We use the word goods to talk about things like gold silver animals vegetables, etc.
Jewels, things like that.
So people had to exchange these goods.
And it was harder to buy things and sell things in an efficient way.
But with paper currency, this was revolutionized.
And after that, people were able to buy and sell and trade much more easily.
Of course, today we have many problems with paper currency.
We have something called inflation.
This is a big problem nowadays.
So we're facing new challenges with this invention of paper currency.
But at the time, it was a big step up from just trading physical goods.
And then lastly, let's just talk about the cell phone.
This is also one of the biggest innovations of all time.
The first cell phone was invented in 1973.
Before that, we had home phones, right?
Today, we sometimes call those landlines.
A landline is a phone that you have at home.
So when the innovation of the cell phone took place, this started a lot of new ideas.
And, of course, throughout the next decades, different companies started producing different cell phones and units.
Each one was better than the last one.
And then finally, we have the invention of the smartphone, right?
So the smartphone is first came out in 2007.
I'm sure a lot of you remember that, right?
The very first iPhone.
And so this was a huge innovation because, starting from that time, people could access the internet from their pocket.
They could carry the internet around with them, so to say.
Of course, this was completely revolutionary.
And nowadays, almost everyone who has a cell phone has a smartphone.
And most people can't imagine their lives without this device, without this smartphone.
So this really changed our daily lives.
Okay, we'll stop there for today.
Hopefully this episode was interesting for you and hopefully it was good practice for your listening.
Of course, remember that you have the transcript available in the details part of this episode, so you can access that.
And, of course, remember to share this podcast with anyone who might find it useful and And if you can give it a like, a review, a rating, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts.
And remember to sign up for our $1 listening practice seminars at polyglossa.com.
So thank you for listening to this episode.
And I hope you'll come back for episode 24 of the Listening Time podcast.
