Recap and (Re)set: All the Good Talk during the 2022 Likha Creative Summit

With the Philippines’ creative entrepreneurs, designers, freelancers, agencies, and organizations in what seemed to be a huge classroom, the first day of the 2022 Likha Creative Summit focused on imparting creative and entrepreneurial wisdom and values to all attendees. Notable Filipino creatives AJ Dimarucot, Kia Abrera, Lyqa Maravilla, and Prim Paypon, discussed creativity in practice, in communication, in education, and with impact respectively. 

Founder and CEO of The Futur and Emmy-winning designer Chris Do spoke last, lecturing participants on how they can run their creative business with the right attitude. He conducted a mini exercise on whether each one carries a rich or poor mindset and shared tips on how one can work on the lapses that often hold them back from living up to their full creative and entrepreneurial potential. 

Here is Kanto’s rundown of the speakers’ presentations and key points: 

Creativity in Practice — AJ Dimarucot

Renowned graphic designer AJ Dimarucot recalled the early days of discovering his passion. He narrated how he chose to work on learning the principles and rigors of Adobe Photoshop while dissing his Engineering classes and looking for potential clients through websites such as Craigslist. “I got my breakthrough the day I got to tell my parents that I wasn’t going to school anymore and that design is what I really want to do,” he shared with the audience during the Q&A. He added that from that day on, he committed to harnessing his skills in his craft and being confident enough that clients actually believe in what he can do.

His talk centered on defining creativity in so many ways, zeroing on how it often begins with curiosity and having a constant thirst to do better and learn more. He also expounded on how creativity is all about leaving one’s comfort zone, alluding to his early days when he pushed himself harder until he eventually gained the likes of Nike and Adidas as clients. The designer ended the talk by stressing that creativity is not fearing rejection or failure, reminding the Malikhains that building a creative practice requires bravery and courage to get back up whenever the path gets rocky and that you will eventually get to where you need to be. 

Creativity in Communication — Kia Abrera

The second speaker was one of Likha’s very own founders, Kia Abrera, who is a creative entrepreneur known for her relatable content on Tiktok. Communication models were prevalent in her talk, with her sharing the various patterns she studied on how one can interact in the digital space. She revealed how she explored Tiktok as a platform along with the factors she learned in terms of gaining engagement. She emphasized that everything starts with understanding and adapting to one’s environment, which often leads to finding a niche, knowing what and when to post, and receiving feedback.

Before ending, one of the major things that she imparted to participants is how they should practice communicating more effectively. She underlined this by reiterating one of international motivational speaker Vin Giang’s points, which reads: ​​“If you’re a 10/10 technically, and a 2/10 communication-wise, do you think people perceive you to be a 10/10 or a 2/10? You are only as good as you can communicate. If you don’t communicate well, people don’t see you for your brilliance. And people a lot of time are raking their brains going, ‘Why am I not more successful?’ Well, it’s because you’re not showing people how good you are.”

Creativity in Education —Lyqa Maravilla

Using popular idioms throughout her presentation, registered psychometrician and motivational speaker Lyqa Maravilla debunked certain myths about creatives in general. She began by expounding on the fact that the Filipino word ‘diskarte’ has no direct translation in English and how it stems from the Spanish word ‘descartes’, which means to throw away or dispense. Maravilla then discussed how Filipinos have long been making something good out of things that have been dismissed, especially during Spanish colonialization. She pointed out how our early ancestors were called ‘Indios’ and said that we can always interpret the word ‘indigenous’ as ‘Indio-genius.’

“Fitting a square peg in a round hole” was the first idiom she focused on. Here, she talked about the usual and even her personal experience of being told that you don’t fit or belong to a particular craft and how this must be used to fuel one’s power and make the circle bigger. She also took the controversial “jack of all trades” take on creatives and reassured everyone that “a jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.” To cap it all off, Maravilla tested the audience by asking them to multiply 98 by 12 and telling them that people discover new and various ways to solve a mathematical equation. She then underscored that “teaching an old dog new tricks” is possible, but only if we see past old ways and choose to continuously evolve.

Creativity with Impact — Prim Paypon

Emotions were high during dreamagineer Prim Paypon’s talk, who initially revealed to the audience that he has not stepped on a stage for quite long and that he is still processing the passing of his mother. He talked about his mom being a literal wonder woman who was able to solely raise and send 9 children to prestigious schools. Paypon proudly said that his mom is his inspiration and the very reason for his dream to make the world a better place. He presented the concept of having a life number, which is “the ideal number of people you should have met, inspired, and served before your birthday each year”.

The Dream Project founder presented his undertakings throughout his talk, with one being a Bahay Kubo Learning Center in Negros Occidental built using mudhouse technology. The structure was designed to act as “a multi-purpose day-care community center for learning, nutrition, urban farming, safe water, fit for school, community-based enterprise, play, sports, and Filipino dreams.” He also talked about one of his most prominent projects, which is raising funds for the WAF finalist Emergency Quarantine Facilities by WTA Design Studio during the onslaught of the pandemic. Paypon highlighted the importance of reaching out to communities and being that helping hand wherever you see fit throughout his time on stage. He ended his talk by revealing that his life number is now over 14,000, gaining a well-deserved standing ovation from the audience. 

Creative Mind(re)set — Chris Do 

Emmy-winning director, designer, strategist, and educator Chris Do literally started his talk by saying he was nervous, joking that he often could say that he has the best job in the world, but is now unsure after hearing all the previous speakers. His presentation centered on how a creative can develop a success mindset by understanding and applying cognitive bias, identity, and reframing. He presented 60 principles to the audience, with half of these being the 30 success principles. 

A test was conducted for each one to be honest enough on what they’d rather do or choose from the rich or poor mindset principles. Examples of the dilemmas discussed are playing it safe or taking calculated risks, focusing on the result or loving the journey, and magical thinking or setting clear goals. At the end of the exercise, one would check how many from the “rich mindset” columns they chose and total that to compute the store they go out of 30. This was Do’s way of confronting each of the creatives with values that they already know but often fail to do or practice, along with mistakes that they recognize but still keep on doing.

The day ended with Do reaffirming everyone that a breakthrough starts once one decides to think that they will be great. He said that the mind is the main foundation of what you can be and that now is the time to act on whatever idea you have. 

You can manifest anything.  •

Kanto.com.ph is a proud media partner of the Likha Creative Entrepreneurship Summit. Watch out for our exclusive interviews with Kia Abrera and Chris Do. Soon here at Kanto.

Gabrielle de la Cruz started writing about architecture and design in 2019. She previously wrote for BluPrint magazine and was trained under the leadership of then editor-in-chief Judith Torres and previous creative director Patrick Kasingsing. Read more of her work here and follow her on Instagram @gabbie.delacruz.