Creativity Is An Underrated Performance Booster
Simply put, creativity ultimately leads to innovation, innovation creates value, and value makes you stand out
Hey there! If you want to join 1,463+ other readers learning about internet-native communities, make sure to subscribe to this newsletter.
Just a couple of weeks ago, a dude named Tim Kempton decided to share his hustle culture advice on Twitter, and Twitter was all here to argue once again over this never-ending debate.
Now, whether you agree with him or not is beside the point.
The real point here is the obsession with productivity that permeates our social media feeds. Twitter is a breeding ground for so-called gurus who preach the hustle culture, spewing out advice on optimizing your life, winning money, and delivering faster than Eminem on caffeine.
Over the years, we've all been fed a narrative that values productivity above all else, encouraging us to spend hours designing systems in the hope of checking off tasks on our to-do lists a bit faster.
But let me share a unconventional truth here:
Creativity is the ultimate performance booster.
We're constantly told productivity is the secret element to success, and when I started writing online 3 years ago, I followed the usual path, posting multiple times a day on Twitter, trying to be always out there.
But now I can tell you:
Productivity is not the answer to success, especially in 2023.
The advice of the Twitter gurus will turn you into a great worker (eventually), but you can't expect to rise above the crowd by just following what they do.
The hard reality is there's only so high you can go by being productive.
The good news, on the other hand, is there are almost unlimited upsides to creativity.
Let’s dive in.
1 | The Tetris Underdog
When I was a kid, I loved to play Tetris.
I'm sure many of you have played, but for the ones in the back, the rules are simple: you stack blocks, clear lines, and try to survive the longest possible.
I must admit, I was never a Tetris prodigy myself. Level 5 was my shining moment, a brief glimpse of glory in a sea of mediocrity (we all have our limits, right?)
But as in every video game, there are tryhards who don't simply play Tetris when they're bored in the plane, and Jonas Newpower is one of them.
In 2017, the American had already won 7 Tetris World Championship titles.
Now, to set the scene, in the 34-year history of Tetris, players like Jonas have primarily stuck to the classic way of playing (aka DAS). Basically, when you want to go right, you keep pushing the right arrow. When you want to go left, you push the left button. As easy as it gets, right?
And so, as predicted, in 2018, the champion returned to the Tetris World Championship, beat everyone in the first rounds of the competition, and made his way up to the final.
Except this time, he didn't win. And would never again.
Because from there on, new kids on the block would invent new tactics.
Joseph Saelee, his opponent in the 2018 Final, at only 17 years old, knew he couldn't go head-to-head with the seven-time champion using the same old tactics.
So he did something audacious:
Taping multiple times on the buttons instead of simply pressing them.
And guess what? Joseph won.
Against all odds, the young American toppled the Tetris giant and invented a new category of players:
The Hypertappers.
But the story doesn't end there.
In 2021, another kid named Jacob Huff shook the Tetris scene with yet another revolutionary tactic: the Rolling.
And this time, instead of tapping the controller really fast WITH his fingers as Joseph did, Jacob started tapping the controller really fast TO his fingers.
With Rolling, players no more taped 12 times per second on the buttons as they used to with the Hypertapping tactic, but 20 taps per second.
Now, maybe you wonder why it is so impressive, and maybe you don't understand why pressing a button a little faster can revolutionize the game.
A Roller today can perform so much pressure per second, and so precisely, that he can pass through Level 29, a level designed to bring the game to a complete stop.
Theoretically, a Roller can now survive ad infinitum.
And obviously, only a few months after this tactic was used for the first time, all the world records got broken by Rolling users.
Just to give you an idea:
The world record with Hypertapping was 38 levels for a score of 1,439,713 points.
The record with Rolling is 146 levels with a score of 6,492,500 points.
It's a 450% increase. It's absurd.
And all of this happened because those random kids in their room, who could simply apply the methods found by thousands before them, decided that maybe there was a different way, that maybe, compared to others, they could be creative.
Joseph, the 17 years old who beat the 7x Tetris champion, could have dedicated countless days and nights listening to advice given by Tetris' gurus, training and optimizing the way he presses buttons like thousands before him, steadily climbing the ranks over the course of several years, eventually earning a spot in the Tetris World Cup finals.
But even by doing this, his chance of winning would have been 50/50, depending on the conditions of the day.
Because fundamentally, he would do the exact same thing as his opponent.
By following his own path, Joseph left his opponent no chance.
2 | The Twitter Game
Twitter and the world are much like Tetris—a game where the best players can only be the best for so long until they get replaced by newcomers with new tactics.
Trust me; you could never beat the top players or creators at their own game.
You can't hope to compete against creators who boast a decade's worth of experience and millions of followers by simply emulating their threads and following their productivity advice.
They have 10x your experience, your network, and your skills.
But you can outperform most people at whatever game you're playing by doing one thing:
Let everyone else drown in productive tactics and just do your thing. Be creative.
The greatest entrepreneurs, the ones who have changed the game, all took a different path.
Richard Branson didn't compete with Boeing head-to-head.
Jeff Bezos didn't compete against Barnes & Noble head-to-head.
Elon Musk didn't compete against NASA head-to-head (but he might against Zuck very soon)
And in the world of crypto, where innovation reigns supreme, creativity isn't just an accessory—it's a freaking superpower.
Web3, more than any other industry, requires people to be creative and find solutions to problems we've never thought about.
Productivity is like the engine of a sports car—it's designed to go fast and get you from point A to point B.
The thing is, in crypto, we don't have point B yet.
Web3 will become truly mainstream in probably about 10 years.
It will only be useful in a society that might not be recognizable, helping solve problems that we have yet to discover.
In this industry, creativity is a much better skill to develop than productivity.
Closing Thoughts
Creativity leads you to accomplish performance you would have never thought possible, and the world of crypto and entrepreneurship is waiting for those who dare to think differently.
So stop optimizing every aspect of your life like a Tetris playfield.
Go out to touch the grass. Take the time to do nothing.
Take the time for inspiration to strike.
Take the time to come up with truly innovative ideas.
Because remember:
There’s only so much you can do by being productive, but there are unlimited upsides to creativity.
Speak soon,
- Eliot
PS: What did you think of this article? If you enjoyed today's edition, let me know here - It'll help me understand what you want me to write about (and it only takes you 10sec).
PPS: Substack just launched their Referral program. If you want to help me spread the world, I want to reward you:
Invite 2 friends → Get my book “The 5 Pillars Of Web3 Community Building”.
Invite 5 friends → Get 50% off my course “Mastering The Science Of Shaping Communities That Last”.
Invite 10 friends → Get 1 hours consulting session with me.
Great post! Insane how good people can get in Tetris 😮