After graduation, the first rejection was from HR; the tenth, from AI.

June 2021. Ah Ming squeezed onto the subway during rush hour for her first job interview.

The HR, a smiling woman, carefully flipped through 17 pages of her portfolio before closing her notebook:

"Your drawings are quite good, but you lack experience. Go home and wait for our response."

25 years later, she had created over 300 brand visual identity systems and over 1000 posters, with clients ranging from startups to unicorns.

She wanted to take a short break, planning to change jobs and get a higher salary, and confidently submitted over a dozen resumes.

And the result? A pop-up window with only one cold line:

"System automatically filtered: Skills do not match job requirements."

The AI ​​threw her portfolio into the recycle bin in just 0.7 seconds.

This time, it didn't even get a chance to be opened.

If no one likes it, has all this work been for nothing? Every time you open a blank document, canvas, or Photoshop, does your heart pound faster than a drumbeat? Or, just minutes after a video is posted, you keep refreshing the data to see if the view count has moved? Congratulations, you're experiencing 'creative anxiety.' This is a common experience almost everyone has. It makes you revise the first sentence repeatedly, adjust every pixel in the image, delay the final deadline, and make you doubt your own worth in the face of others' popularity. We often treat anxiety as the enemy of creation, so we desperately suppress and avoid it, or use longer preparation to cover up that unease. But the truth is quite the opposite: anxiety is not a malfunction, but a signal that you care about your work, your expression, and your growth. Because you will only be anxious about what you truly care about. The problem is never "whether there is anxiety," but "how you deal with it." I tried suppressing it, ignoring it, until later I understood that when you downgrade anxiety from an "enemy" to a "partner," your work actually improves. Next, I will guide you through 4 steps to teach you how to make anxiety lead to signing contracts, acquiring equity, and sharing profits.

Many of us are reluctant to talk about our failures, and I'm no exception. Because we're afraid of being looked down upon, and afraid of admitting we're "not good enough."

So who would willingly reopen their wounds? But we'd prefer to use another word: "comeback."

I just feel even more stifled, like forcibly calling a bloody scar a medal. It still hurts.

Have you ever considered this:

Those most painful scars

are actually your most fertile fields?

Imagine you stumble and fall into the mud, your knees hurt

But the following year, that patch of soil grows the thickest seed. The harder you tread, the more wildly it grows.

Today, let's talk about setbacks, failures

and

how we recover from them

and even cleverly utilize them

turning these setbacks into springboards for creation and growth.

Next, I'll discuss this from three perspectives:

Redefining failure

Turning failure into fuel

The power of vision

In fact, most people believe that creativity is a gift. Some people are born with brilliant minds, while others can easily dazzle the audience with a single idea. And we can only envy them and think, "They must be gifted." But later I discovered that this is completely different. Creativity is actually a skill that can be cultivated. I remember when I was a child, in art class, the teacher said, "Draw your imagination." I stared at the blank page, my mind blank. The essay topic was "Imagine the Future." I was so nervous that my palms were sweating, and I struggled to write even one sentence more than others. At that time, I really thought that some people were born with the ability to draw, have inspiration, and have bright minds, while I was just an "ordinary person." It wasn't until I grew up, and my work required constant brainstorming, proposal writing, and creative thinking, that I gradually realized that creativity isn't something that can be "thought up," but something that can be practiced. Just like fitness: if you don't practice, it becomes loose; if you practice regularly, it becomes stronger. So today, I want to talk to you about how we can cultivate our creativity.

A Creator's "Self-Help Guide"

It took me three years to understand: Those who persevere follow their own path.

I often hear people say that plans fail because of a lack of willpower, as if willpower is the magic wand that can achieve your goals.

It's enough to finish your novel, make your video a viral hit, or create a stunning design.

But the truth is:

Achieving your goals has little to do with willpower or even the plan itself.

So how do you "smoothly complete your plans and naturally achieve your goals"? You need three keys.

Three Keys:

Identify the problem

Repeatability

A global perspective