At Cannes Lions, conversations with creatives from around the world reinforced something I had already begun to feel: creativity does not begin with the brief. It begins with everything we notice before it.

It starts with how we live, what we pay attention to and how curious we are about the world around us. A brief can give our thinking direction, but it cannot give us a point of view. That comes from our experiences, the people we meet, the cultures we encounter and the things we remember.

That is why I believe creativity is a mindset, not just a job title.

You do not suddenly become creative because you work in a creative department. To me, creativity is about noticing things differently: being curious about details others overlook, asking why people behave the way they do and connecting things that do not obviously belong together.

My perspective has been shaped by living between cultures. I am Korean, but I have built my life and creative career in South Africa. That has made me more aware of how differently people communicate, joke, celebrate and connect.

What feels normal to one person may feel completely unfamiliar to someone else. That difference forces you to question your assumptions and reminds you that there is rarely only one way to see something.

Cannes made this even clearer. Being surrounded by people from different countries and cultures showed me how differently the same idea could be understood depending on someone's background or lived experience.

Inside the judging rooms, I saw work interpreted through different cultural lenses. In talks and smaller conversations, I heard creatives explain where their ideas came from. Often, the starting point was not advertising. It was a local behaviour, a family ritual, a cultural tension, technology or something happening in their community.

Exposure gives you more ways to understand a problem. The more perspectives you encounter, the less likely you are to settle for the obvious answer. You become more aware of your blind spots and more open to unfamiliar ideas.

Another Cannes takeaway was how simple some of the best ideas were. They were not always built on complicated technology or many moving parts. Often, they began with something human: a behaviour, habit, tension or truth that people immediately recognised but had not seen framed in that way before.

That changed how I think about inspiration.

Creative inspiration is your world. It is your people, the little conversations you have, the places you go and the things you notice when you are not trying to solve a brief. It can come from something a friend says, a family habit, a stranger in a queue or even a Reel on Instagram. It can come from fashion, food, music, sport, design or a joke in a group chat.

The brief may ask the question, but your life gives you the material to answer it. Curiosity helps you collect that material.

For young creatives, the answer is not to wait for inspiration to strike. You have to build a life that gives ideas more opportunities to find you, then be proactive enough to keep what you find.

Whenever I see something interesting, I archive it. I have a folder where I save anything that could spark something later: a campaign, an image, an unusual product, a social post, a problem, a line someone said or something completely random. I may not know why it matters when I save it. Months later, it can suddenly connect with a brief in a way I never expected.

Creativity works all the time, (sometimes even in your dreams). That does not mean you should always be working. Switching off, resting and making space for life are important. But the part of your brain that notices, questions and connects things should stay awake.

Pay attention. Save what interests you. Write down the strange thought. Follow the unexpected reference. Speak to people outside your usual world. Try things without needing them to become work.

Cannes showed me the level of thinking and craft that can take an idea onto a global stage. I would love to return one day with work of my own and, hopefully, a Lion to show for it, but that journey will not begin with the award entry, or even with the brief. It will begin much earlier, in the life I continue to live outside the office.

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*Image courtesy of contributor