Before the course, I had a shallow understanding of creativity. I thought creativity was a gift people are just born having. When I thought of creativity, I thought of the brilliant minds of famous people such as Da Vinci, Elon Musk, and Steve Jobs. I put creativity on a pedestal, and I had accepted that I was not a very creative person. But I was wrong. Creativity does not have to be extravagant. I did not have to have spectacular, groundbreaking ideas to be considered a creative person. Creativity is all about execution, no matter how small. Identifying a problem, empathizing, and actively trying to solve it. While some ideas are better renowned than others, sometimes smaller, more straightforward ideas are the way to go. An example would be our innovative solution.

The course challenged my creativity. We had to develop an innovative solution that targeted the home fitness industry. I gave a unique proposal and hoped that my product would be the one that we would work on. I developed a device that allowed users to have more challenging workouts at home. However, people found more value in another product that had a simpler concept. And I was OK with it! It did not bother me that my teammate developed a better solution because we work towards the same problem.

Now it was just a matter of making it work. I believe that the fifth step of the creative process is the most difficult. Elaboration is about putting the ideas we have created into the world. The team knows that there is a lot more work to be done on the product before it is ready to be released. It means that we have to actively put ourselves in a place of criticism and rejection from the market until we are confident. This process will be frustrating, and there is no guarantee that our product will even succeed. However, I believe that my groupmates and I share a passion for this product which will help us push through.

If I had to pick one thing I learned from the course that I like the most, it would be problem finding. It is common for people to look for solutions to pronounced problems. However, the concept of problem finding is looking for a problem that people did not know they have. I noticed that this is what they do in infomercials and other types of advertising. It is also why people buy things they do not need but think they do. Here is a mind map of my favorite topics.

https://www.mindmeister.com/1826198489

Overall, I had a meaningful experience during this course. I had the opportunity to work on essential skills such as leadership, communication, and decision-making, which will help me in my career.