We’ve been a little quiet on the B!G 5 front of late as we’ve been busy getting classes ready for next year’s programme but before our hiatus we had some more fun and lively Instagram Lives with mentors. The sessions are short, sharp and definitely worth tuning in to. Most recently we’ve met with Jonathan Leahy Maharaj who is the creative lead in UCC Academy; Nhung Luu who is a UX designer with Workday; Siobhan Fitzpatrick, founder of The Networking Hub; Diarmuid MacMahon, better known as Mac, a product designer and COO in Design Partners and last but definitely not least, Tara Cullen who is the Design Programme Co-ordinator at TUS.

In all the time that we have been doing Instagram Live, mentors all agree on one thing. Creativity is for everyone, well apart from Accountants, according to Jonathan Leahy Maharaj! While numbers and spreadsheets might not be typical of the more creative-minded, Mac believes that every project is creative; it doesn’t matter whether you’re an engineer, a designer, a UX or whatever, every single part of every project has creativity involved in it.

As always, it sounds like there is hope for us all!

It seems that there is no set time either for being creative. If you’re like Nhung then it’s when you are not under pressure but doing the normal, day to day things or Jonathan who could be inspired while in the shower or eating lunch or chatting to someone about something else entirely. However, if you are more like Siobhan, you’ll find you’re more creative when you’re surrounded with like-minded people and can bounce ideas around together. Tara is a bit like this aswell as she enjoys the chaotic creative phase of the process when everyone is brainstorming and the project is going at 90mph, you don’t know where it’s going and then boom, the magic happens. Mac, interestingly, is a little more disciplined and feels creative any time of the day except for the middle of the day slump.

Jonathan believes that his greatest failure is one that most of us can relate to, not believing in yourself. Mac’s was his degree. He says he was never happy with his degree project, that it was his biggest creative fail but he probably learnt the most from it.

He points out that everyone makes mistakes in every project and that is fine. The trick is not to make the same mistakes. As we say in The B!G Idea, it’s all about fLearning – failure when learning but Mac’s advice is very sound. Don’t worry about the failures, move on and just make sure that when you go to do it again, you don’t make the same mistakes.

So the big takeaways from this sparky group are: question everything, challenge everything, be curious, take risks, fail and learn and, most of all, believe in yourself.

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