We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Maxim Jago. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Maxim below.

Maxim, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What did your parents do right and how has that impacted you in your life and career?

From my earliest memories, I know that I could ask my parents anything and I would generally get a reasonable response. By that I mean I would not be spoken down to – an explanation or answer would be given that helped to expand my undertanding. Naturally the language was age appropriate but my profoundly curious mind was given all the understanding needed to learn and grow. Being spoken to ‘eye to eye’, as it were, meant that I grew up expecting to respect everyone and see everyone as a complete equal. This occasionally caused problems at school when I would reason with teachers who expected a lot less ‘talkback’ but as I’ve moved into the ‘real world’, it has enabled me to respect everyone I meet regardless of their status and appreciate the light everyone has inside of them.

Maxim, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am the Founder of The Creativity Conference, a Film Director, Author, Consultant Futurist, Keynote, and Educator. I started out wanting to direct films when I was 15, and was fortunate enough to get a college job providing technical support for Microsoft. That second occupation gave me a broad range of technical skills, which I built upon over time while continuing to make films. The outcome was broadly two separate but connected careers, which together have led to an extraordinary range of experiences and the opportunity to work with some of the brightest minds in the world. The journey to date has been extremely challenging but equally rewarding.

As the Founder of The Creativity Conference, I bring together extraordinary creative minds and invite them to speak about the most important aspects of their work: Their joy, inspiration, and whatever compells them to create original work that changes the world. The conference has been running for several years and we host it both in-person and online.

As a filmmaker, I always believed film (and now mixed media, virtual reality and metaverse experiences) has the potential to transform lives. My working definition for Art (with a capital A) rather than art (with a small a) is that Art changes the person who experiences it. Whole cultures can be changed by a single film and it’s a joy to work with the large teams of creatives who come together to produce films.

As a Consultant and Futurist, my tasks is to forecast what is going to happen and when, and be right about both. I’ve had the privilege of working with some of the largest organisations in the world either as a consultant or educator and every time I meet a new individual or organisation I learn a lot.

I particularly love giving keynotes as it’s an opportunity to share a condensed version of my own research as I seek to make sense of the fast-changing and fascinating universe we live in.

I suppose what sets me apart is the very broad range of knowledge I have. I don’t have a particularly deep understanding of many subjects but my breadth of study means I have the opportunity to observe patterns across multiple industries and occupations and those patterns help me see ways forward that might be missed if focusing on a single narrow field.

Most importantly, I care passionately about the human condition and our most fundamental needs. Everyone loves to be loved, everyone is afraid of fear. The more we can recognise the similarities between us, regardless of demographic, place of birth or social status, the more we can come together and create a world we most wish to live in – together.

When I give keynotes, I tend to focus on evidencing universal truths about realising our real potential, and the feedback on this approach to conveying understanding has always been fantastic.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Give them money! There are so many free education resources, communities, government programmes and books but what many creatives need most is time. They say wealth is freedom, and I believe this is often true. However, most creatives don’t really need lots of money and expensive possessions – they need the freedom to focus on their creative discipline. To be able to do this, they need their basic survival needs to be met – and ideally effortlessly. There aren’t all that many needs – food, shelter, clothing, and so on – to live a life with dignity. Still, until these needs a fully met a creative is unlikely to have the presence of mind to be fully present with their creative work. They’ll be too busy working an often low paid job to make ends meet – and getting exhausted in the process, so when they finally to go turn their attention to their creative discipline, they haven’t the mental or physical strength left to do so.
Relatively small amounts of money can be transformative for creatives.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

I mostly seek opportunities to enable people to realise their potential. This simple idea – realise your potential – is easy to think about but often hard to do. To begin with, you need to know yourself well, so you can make clear decisions about whether there is anything you’d like to change or if you are actively engaged in the right projects. Sometimes a person just needs the right question to be asked, sometimes they gain by having their opinions challenged. We should all be able to justify the decisions we make and “I feel it” is rarely enough to justify the extraordinary choices we made (though sometimes it’s the only true answer that makes sense).
We either believe our lives are random and without meaning or we believe there is some kind of design. If there IS a design then perhaps there is some way to identify your natural qualities that make you ideal for a particular occupation – and, of course, occupations are not the same as careers.
Every step we take towards fulfilling our potential is a step towards happiness.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://maximjago.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maximjago/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/maximjago
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maximjago/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaximJago
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@maxim_jago
• Other: https://www.creativityconference.is/