CREATIVITY CAN BE TAUGHT

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY -PART 1: ATTITUDE

              

Do you remember in your childhood, there were kids who found it easy to turn a fence into a wire car of any shape and size; they always seemed to find a way out of their challenges. Some of your childhood friends turned out to be great artists, very creative lads.
When we think of creative minds, we think of Thomas Edison, Napoleon Bonaparte, Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Henry ford, Picasso, creatives at advertizing agencies and so on. It is true that some people like the ones we have mentioned were well endowed with a high IQ and imagination. You may think that you can’t achieve as much these people did, but you will be surprised that there is little or no difference between you and these people, let us look at some of these similarities

1. The number of cells in every brain is the same.
2. On average we all get exposed to the same amount of information.
3. Our bodies all work the same way at the time of birth( if born normal)
4. We all make mistakes.
5. We all have the latent mental capacity( potential to learn more under certain pressures)
6. We are made of the same raw material-water, soil, spirit and will.

The very first thing you need to do is to develop a creative attitude, believe that you are able to solve problems, that you are not in the world to add to the world’s problems but to provide a special remedy. This kind of divergent thinking allows you look into yourself and bring out the things that are deposited in you. Always remember that the underlying factors of human personality are similar it is their purpose and usefulness that differs. The creators intention was and is originality, develop an original mindset and shun conformity, you will be well on your way to genius.

I happen to believe in the CREATION account for the foundation of the earth, and in the good book it says that we are made in the image of God, what that means in essence is that we can do what God can do- not all; only those things he has allowed himself to share with us. One of these things is the inherent creativity that we human beings display. Try as they may, chimpanzees could not accomplish what we have achieved as human beings- simply because we have Gods creative DNA in us and they don’t, however all of nature displays marvelous displays of original thinking and innovation in order to adapt with change, from camouflage, to hunting techniques like a chimp using a stick to pick termites, these are a testament of our potential as Gods supreme being and that includes you.

When I was about 3 years, my grandmother brought home those small, green and hard passion fruits, being the only child at home; they were surprised at the rate of the fruits disappearance. One day when my mother came from her teaching, she found me seated with an array of passion fruit shells behind me and my baby cheeks covered with passion seeds as I pushed my tongue into the half passion fruit in my hands with such relish.  She was astounded at how a toddler could accomplish with so much ease a task that adults had employed a pestle to do- break the passion fruits open.

My mother didn’t say a thing to see my secret to my destructive efficiency, to her surprise, I got another hard passion fruit from the basket and put it in the door hinge and pulled, as the door closed in the passion opened with a loud crackle. That is how at 3 years I invented for my home our passion cracker. Of course she was so thrilled at my ingenuity I got away with stealing passion fruits. Honestly I didn’t know that story till my mother told it to me, and looking back I see that every human being has a God given ability to creatively solve problems

You may look at yourself and not think you are very creative, you may not remember contributing significant ideas in the different life challenges that you have faced lately. When you recollect those days at work when your boss asked for ideas for new products and how you could solve a particular challenge, you probably recall some particularly vocal individuals, some of them had valid ideas and some just loved the sound of their voices. When it came to you, there was literally nothing coming out of your mouth. If you found yourself in such quagmires you could think your next door neighbor is more creative than you are, or that you are a run of the mill ordinary Joe.

My encouragement is that while there are people who are naturally born creative, some of them have been made and taught; likewise if you let yourself go and think right you can definitely develop the creativity trait.

So on average you will see that there is very little difference between you and the more creative people.

This brings me to the point that there are things you can do to become more creative hence improving your standard of life and performance at work. I am going to share with you those things that you can do to become more creative and the “go-to-person in your organization or community, watch out for these in my next article. But you also could register for our OUTSIDE-THE-BOX WORKSHOP: A seminar on creative thinking skills.

Creating a Culture of Innovation

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CREATIVITY -PART 2: TEN GOLDEN TIPS

In my last article I gave a background to how every human being has God given latent creativity potential, today I will discuss how you can actively cash in on your latent and make it vivid. I have developed some ways you can accomplish this both for your business, company and society.

1. Relax your brain: when I say this I don’t mean you go on a binge of doing nothing, on the contrary you relax your brain by subjecting it to mental challenges and exercises, do a series of crosswords or Sudoku, personally I love word search. You also relax your brain by getting enough sleep between 6-8 hours daily but don’t over sleep because that becomes counterproductive to your work ethic. Also try to eat food rich in vitamins and proteins you get from fish. Legumes are also good for brain development. See you nutritionist on more of that. Regularly exercise to allow free flow of blood to your brain and keep off drugs they are bad for your brain. Remember a healthy brain in a healthy body.
2. Guard your mind: you have heard the common saying of GIGO-garbage-in-garbage-out. The brain works like a sponge, it will imbibe anything that it is exposed to, if you are thirsty and you put a sponge in water, you can press that water out to your mouth, on the other hand put that same sponge in urine, and press it to your mouth, I don’t think you will like the outcome. Therefore watch what you let into your mind, through your eyes, ears, feelings and mouth. Let me give you a small guide; ask yourself, whatever you feed your mind with,

• HOW DOES IT? – improve my thoughts

• Solve any problem
• Reflect on your personality
• Improve your life or make you better.

Watch less TV and read more instead, reading stimulates your brains ability to create images and relate more with the surrounding in your life. Stop watching negative and violent stuff instead watch things that cause you to think more, feed your mind with things that teach you something positive

3. Keep an open mind: to be more creative you must be flexible and open minded, allow yourself to be shocked but mostly allow yourself to learn something new. Organizations and people that stop learning will ultimately stop growing.  Try to observe more the next time you go somewhere new, or walk through a familiar place and look for something unfamiliar. Always internalize before you advertize, by now you will have collected a lot of information but before you utilize it by expressing yourself, internalize it, let it sink in before it flows out, as you meditate and mule over it, you are likely to get insights that were not obvious before. Before I write or speak at events I will collect a series of articles and books on my topic, read them, running them through my head, when I get my epiphany, at the moment when I can relate then am I open to communicate, but this all needs an open mind because there is always a better way, and as a creative businessman you don’t want to miss it.

4. LEARN FROM CREATIVE PEOPLE: I love biographies; I like to study other successful and more creative people than myself. Always remember there is nothing new under the sun, so instead of trying to reinvent the will, study the deeds and disciplines of creative people and model these successes. Interestingly while we are animals or originality we are also animals of association, don’t be afraid to take an idea from napoleon and modify it to suit your current need. This is called adoptive creativity. Learn from people that have done it before.

5. Become curious: creativity is about solutions, you can’t have solutions without questions. Despite serendipity, you can’t find what you are not looking for. So develop a curious personality, seek to know. I could break this down into 2 routes Firstly; investigate: look things up don’t take things for granted, delve a little deeper than the surface, ask questions like, how does this work, where did it come from, chances are if you know the origin and history of a challenge you could forecast the future solution. Secondly, study: by studying you develop a wider perspective of a given subject, personally I have made it my goal to know as much as I can about creativity and innovation, so I collect and read a series of magazines, books, I speak about it, I surf about it.  I am a continuous student of this phenomenon called creativity.

6. Keep a journal: You can buy a special journal or an ordinary book, record and track your thoughts, you need this book everywhere you go, because you will be surprised where an idea could jump at you, you could be in a taxi, in bed and if you are like some of us in clean bathrooms, I personally like reading in a clean toilet- true story. Write down all your ideas, track them, and verify which ones are sticking on your mind the ones that recur. You will also find that you will throw away 90% of your ideas but the 10% will be invaluable.

7. Accept the challenge: don’t shy away from a debate, a competition, a problem solving session, always take the challenge, in any case life will always confront us with challenges , its not until we face our challenges that we are made aware of our capability at problem solving. Remember you can’t shine if you don’t play, so take the challenge, play and shine.

8. Develop a positive outlook: creative people are always looking for a possibility and not at a problem, even when they are looking for a problem, it is to solve it. Likewise if you want to improve your creativity have a positive outlook, look at things as they could be not as they are, and see yourself with the solution to the problem. It will set you back miles if you allow yourself to whine and complain, instead remember what Henry ford said, “failures are an opportunity to start over, more intelligently.” I was reading recently in the Entrepreneur magazine about this guy- TosTee who built a multi million rand business and just in a year he was broke and burst with a debt of 11 million rand, but because of his positive outlook on life, he turned that failure round, rebuilt his business, only this time, less of the previous usuals. He didn’t give up on himself, he didn’t complain about credit crunch or interest rates; he remembered that there is no problem that can’t be solved.

9. Accept change:  Rigidity and creativity are mutually exclusive, because it takes change to have creativity. If you are going to be creative, you should learn to embrace change, because it happens and will always be here with us. you need to develop your mind to accommodate change and uncertainties.  You will always find that there is more than one way to skin a cat, so relax when people around you use a different approach compared to what you are used to. Many organizations like things to remain the same, systems, beliefs and so on. In a world that is rapidly changing, creativity and innovation are the only sure way ticket to the land of survival and promise, so make friends with change.

10. Attend the OUTSIDE-THE-BOX SEMINAR. CREATIVE MINDS will be running a 1 day workshop open to the public on the 3rd July in creative thinking skills. You could find out more about how to be creative by attending this workshop for only 50k.

Creative challenge

Try to put these into practice and share with me how you think you can solve the garbage disposal challenge in your neighborhood.