Ryan Reynolds' 13 Words Challenge Big Ideas About Creativity and Success

Most people know Ryan Reynolds as a famous movie star from films like Deadpool and Green Lantern. Business owners -- and those who watched Welcome to Wrexham -- may also know he's good at running businesses.

But do you know how good he really is?

He owns an English soccer team, alcohol company, ad agency, and other businesses. Forbes magazine says his businesses are worth about $14 billion.

Clearly, he has lots of good ideas. What advice does he have for the rest of us on how to be more creative for business success? In a recent talk, Reynolds shared tips that are easy to understand -- and surprisingly easy to use.

You might think that being a top Hollywood actor means you have all the money you need for your projects. But in a recent New York Times interview about his new movie Deadpool and Wolverine with Hugh Jackman, Ryan Reynolds says that's not always true.

Reynolds says making the first Deadpool movie was hard. He worked on it for ten years before anyone agreed to make it. Even then, they didn't give him much money, and they weren't sure if people would like the movie.

"I even gave up my pay for the movie to put more money into making it better. They wouldn't let my co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick be on set, so I used the little money I had left to pay them to be there with me so we could work on the script together," he remembers.

But instead of thinking that not having money and support was bad for the movie, Reynolds found that having limits actually made him more creative. He said this important idea in just 13 words:

"One of the great enemies of creativity is too much time and money," Reynolds says.

Not having money for big stunts and explosions made the Deadpool team focus on the characters and story, which is what made people like the movie. It ended up being a surprise hit that made $782.8 million even though it only cost $58 million to make.

Reynolds's 13-word quote about not having resources making you more creative isn't just true for movies. It's a general truth about creativity and success in many areas that other successful people have also said.

Back in 2016, when investors were giving out a lot of money, top investor Mark Suster warned new companies not to take too much money. He said that more money would make you less careful with spending and make people expect too much from your company. He also said it would probably make you less creative.

"It might not feel this way when you're the company founder, but having limits can actually force you to be more creative," he wrote in a blog post. Limits also make you work faster.

"I like to say it's like 'holding your feet to the fire' because it reminds you that you need to keep showing progress," Suster added. "More money means less pressure."

Similarly, successful businessman Gary Vaynerchuk has said that having limits makes you focus, which increases creativity. "Having limited resources forces you to make hard choices about what you'll make and what you won't," he has written.

Twitter and Medium founder Ev Williams has talked about how, after Twitter was successful, he had so much money for Medium that he actually had to create fake limits to make his team more creative.

"With Medium, we have a team that can build anything, big goals, and plenty of money. How do we make sure we don't create something too complicated or fail to finish at all? By setting a deadline," he explained. "We got more done in less time than I'd ever seen any team do. It was amazing and fun. Before we had the deadline, honestly, we were just drifting."

Science agrees with all of them. Studies show that while always being under time pressure and being busy all the time is bad for creativity, working with short-term time limits can create a sense of focus and purpose that helps people ignore distractions, focus on what's important, and do their best work.

Of course, many new business owners wish they had the problems of Ev Williams or Ryan Reynolds. Not having enough time and money holds back too many people. No one would argue against getting more money to worthy business owners who don't usually get it.

But until that happens, many people will keep worrying that not having enough time and money will stop their dreams. If that's you, Reynolds's quote is a reminder that it's possible to change how you think about your situation and see it in a more positive way.

Sure, having money and time is good. But don't forget that limits can be helpful too. When you have less money and time, you have to focus on what's really important. It makes you work faster and be clever. It can make you think of new ideas you wouldn't have thought of otherwise.

In the end, these limits might actually help you do better than if you had lots of money and time.