“How to prepare myself for creative / advertising industry?”  

I was once asked this question by a high school student. There were two questions that I asked myself with this –

• Is it not too early for her to decide on an industry/career?
• How can someone develop an aptitude for creativity and creative thinking?

Well, I really do not know the answer to the first question. But I definitely can make an attempt at the second one!

Once a friend told me – “Never give anything in written, specially opinions and advice, because they come back to you when you want to forget them.”

Well, I decided to do differently this time. I went ahead and gave my first ever written advice to the student as an answer to this question – “How to enter into the world of creativity” 

If I were to go back in time (to my class 10th) and could do things differently, in order to prepare myself and develop an aptitude for a challenging, ever-changing and fulfilling creative industry, I would do following three things.

Explore - Be like a cat, have curiosity and let it kill you. Have 9 lives – do more. Go out and explore the world! Learn to find more questions than answers. This exploration is possible through any of these mediums –

1. Cinema (watch everything before you jump to conclusions – go for diversity of nationality, genres and cultures)

2. Literature (books, comic books, read everything that you can)

3. Travel (go anywhere you have not been to and explore people there! Remember take time to explore places through people who are locals)

Basically develop a passion, one that comes naturally to you. Do not force anything on yourself – find your thing. This passion that you develop would become your highway to explorations. Your passion must drive you crazy. I wish I could have read more books, could travel more, watch more movies, and listen to more music.

Observe to absorb – Be a sponge - while on your exploration journey, make a record sort of thing in your head, heart, soul and possibly diary/notes. It is important to be aware of the fact where you are and what you experiencing at any point in time. It is obvious that you would want to soak in and get lost in while you are doing your thing. My advice is, do that in the moment, but anyway write it later. Observe people, talk to them, absorb as much as you can with all your senses, soak, and imbibe. Embrace every moment. The good, the bad and the ugly. Later you will develop your taste, a liking, an opinion, a perspective. A word of caution here - do not be very rigid too soon, the key is to be malleable and flexible about your perspectives.

Share – Tell a story - Share what you find, what you observe, and your opinion with people. Make “Once Upon A Time…”or “Ek Bar Kya Hua Tha…” your starting lines. It does not matter what stories you tell to start with, but make it interesting. You could write a blog/V-log/Photo-series/Podcast and share with people. Doesn’t matter if it is bad, get it out, take feedback, and improve. Be the storyteller who you wish to be, hopefully the one whose stories make people feel ‘human’. If not today, than tomorrow or the day after, you shall become better and people will start loving your perspective. If you are able to share regularly, sincerely, honestly what you see, feel, think and believe - you will be able to find your own language, your form, your style and will be able to tell the story – your way. And once you figure how to tell YOUR story, then there is no looking back.

I wish I could go back in time to my 10th class and ask a random ‘me’ these questions. I wish! We, at culture opus welcome anyone who wants to starts on this journey of exploration, absorbing and sharing. Write to us at [email protected] and we will try the best we can to make it easier for you. Let’s make more stories.

 - Sachin Sharma