Category: Creativity

Balance: Entreprenurial or Workaholic?

3/14/2013

A well-balanced life is more powerful than the hard work that you put into a business. A well-balanced life feeds the brain, the spirit, the emotions, and the body.

The experience of Life can be incredibly rich, just don't get so caught up in riches that you neglect your Whole Life.

A workaholic is someone who has no identity beyond their work. Life is about so much more than what you do. It is about the relationships you develop and nurture. It is about social impact in your community. It is about the growth and learning you experience. It is about living passionately.

We are creative by our very nature, it's in our genes. Applied intelligence equals creativity. Intelligence takes on many forms. So this creates a new question:

Where is your definition of a workaholic more likely? One living in passion or one living in isolation and fear?

The True Entrepreneur is one that understands that their values, passion, and whole way of being aligned with what they do is essential for success. In this way, the entrepreneur is just being. The business, the vocation, the passion, the purpose, the values, interests, etc. are all a part of who the individual is.

Externally, I don't think anyone could casually observe a difference between a workaholic and this entrepreneur. However, the individual knows. Deep down inside, the answer is known and typically the individual will turn away from acknowledging that truth and rationalize sticking to their tried and true behavior. The tried and true is comfortable. To admit the truth requires change and change is uncomfortable.

Many people welcome change in their external environment and consider themselves capable and open to change. Unfortunately, for most the relationship to the inner self is one of fear; there's a whole can of worms that gets opened when we start doing the inner work. Knowing this, on a gut level, our subconscious quickly reverts to the tried and true. It's hard work to change.

The good news though, is that many entrepreneurs have the ability to see what is happening around them. This ability is what makes entrepreneurs visionary go-getters. However, this does not exempt entrepreneurs from getting caught-up in their business to the detriment of a well-balanced life.

A well-balanced life is more powerful than the hard work that you put into a business. A well-balanced life feeds the brain, the spirit, the emotions, and the body. In creating the space for relationship, recreation, and rest, the benefits experienced will offer stronger focus, greater creativity (beneficial for problem-solving and decision-making), greater self-esteem, and mental/emotional/physical health. Knowing this, choices are made.

If incorporating a well-balanced life would allow you to achieve the same amount of output in 60 hours versus the 80 hours of perseverance, which would you choose? Don't work so hard that you forget to building relationships and forget about the love of exploring and growing your dreams.

The other thing entrepreneurs have difficulty with is learning when to say, "No." and when to say, "That's enough." Always after a new conquest, a new experience, a new peak, and new challenges, an entrepreneur can get all that energy too caught up in the business arena. This will lead to the very thing you fear. Instead, split this energy to have a well-balanced life. Achievement will be far richer in the relationship arena and the personal growth arena.

The experience of Life can be incredibly rich, just don't get so caught up in riches that you neglect your Whole Life.

Be Blessed Family!

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Permission To Be An Artist - Granted!

2/15/2013

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Have you ever felt like you owe someone and explanation for why you have made certain decisions in your life. It almost feels like you need permission or approval in some aspect or another. Well, what you have been allowing to rule your life is the concept of permission. I'm here to tell you that you can do anything you want, and you don't need any ones permission but your God.

Others just couldn't say yes, just couldn't give themselves permission.

What does it mean to have permission to do something? My thesaurus tells me that other words related to permission are: consent, sanctioning and authorization.

Consent signifies agreement, validation that what you're doing meets with specific expectations, criteria and guidelines. It sounds solemn and like someone has faith in you. Sanction is an even more formal declaration of acceptance and faith.

Authorized to Create

Authorization – well, that implies that you're something special. That not just anyone is meant to be painting this painting, writing this song or designing that jewelry. You have been specially authorized to do it.

And why? Because you have the unique gifts that are necessary to bring that creative project into being. Who authorized you? The same power that granted you those gifts and skills – whether you choose to think of that as God, the universe, Spirit, or another name. As we read in the Science of Getting Rich , we're not given the desire to do something without also giving you the skill to carry it out.

Why is it so difficult to authorize ourselves, grant ourselves permission and consent, to sanction our own creative work? Sometimes we seek this permission from others, unconsciously (or consciously) hoping they'll deny it, so we won't really have to venture into the scary world of living up to our potential.

A lot of these words symbolize that external permission is needed. And sometimes it is.

Permission from Others

Whether you want to attend an artist retreat day, meet a deadline or just develop a new idea that came to you overnight, you'll sometimes need permission from the people you share your life with to take the time for your creative work.

It might mean delegating household work or child-care or rescheduling a date or planned event. All of you might also need a willingness to be flexible and to accept that sometimes things don't get done right away. It also means ensuring an environment of support for your work.

Will others give you permission? Of course you can't control what anyone else thinks, says or does, but consider this: our loved ones will take cues from us about how serious our creative work is to us. If we're constantly putting it on the back burner, putting our work down, and letting it be the first thing to go when things get stressful or busy, we're teaching others to treat it the same way.

If we don't take our creative work seriously, why should they?

Permission from Self – Artist at Work

I think what's even more important is the permission we give ourselves. There are so many reasons we deny ourselves permission to pursue our creative work. Fear tops the list. Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of what people will think of us, fear of being good, fear of being terrible, or fear we'll let someone else down, to name a few examples.

Sometimes we hold on to earlier instances when we were denied permission, denied access, not sanctioned or authorized, or when our work was criticized or belittled. Some of us have even been told, directly, NOT to pursue our creative work ("don't give up your day job", "find another path", "you have no business doing this work"), which hung a big UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS sign on the door of our creative hearts.

So hang a new sign on your creative heart – one that reads "Artist at work". And in fine print, "This work has been sanctioned by _______" (the name of your source of Power).

10 Signs That You've Given Yourself Permission To Be A Creative Artist

1. The first words out of your mouth when someone asks "and what do you do?" are "I'm a songwriter/artist/sculptor/writer, etc.".

2. You work steadily at your craft, whether it's working on or re-working pieces or promoting your work.

3. You teach your loved ones to treat your art seriously.

4. The materials and resources that you need to create with are part of your budget and are planned expenses every month.

5. You're committed to your learning, growth and development, participating in artists groups and discussion forums and seeking out mentor-ship and coaching.

6. You don't let mistakes or criticism stop you from taking your next steps.

7. You're building the resources you need to support yourself financially, emotionally and spiritually.

8. You're conscious of your physical lifestyle habits and choose the ones that won't interfere with your creative work.

9. You find opportunities to pass on your knowledge and support wherever possible, to someone who's had less experience than you have.

10. You consistently say no to requests for your time, energy and commitment that will take you away from your creative work.

Be Blessed Family!

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7 Blocks To Creative Thinking And How To Solve Them

1/13/2013

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Each of us has the power to be creative. It's part of our natural make-up as human beings. The trouble is that, too often, we block our natural creativity and so make errors in thinking and give ourselves more problems than we should. Here are 7 ways to open up your natural creativity and keep the channels unblocked.

1. Don't Make Assumptions.

Assumptions are examples of lazy thinking. We simply don't wait to get all the information we need to come to the right conclusions. There is the story of the customer at the bank who after cashing a check and turning to leave, returns and says: "Excuse me, I think you made a mistake." The cashier responds, "I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do. You should have counted it. Once you walk away we are no longer responsible." Whereupon the customer replies: "Well, okay. Thanks for the extra $20."

Tip: When you feel yourself wanting to draw conclusions, just wait until you have all the information.

2. See Things From Other Points Of View.

A truly open mind is willing to accept that, not only do other people have other just as valid points of view from theirs, but that these other points of view may be more valid. A story is told that the modernist painter Pablo Picasso was once traveling on a train across Spain when he got into conversation with a rich businessman who was dismissive of modern art. As evidence that modern art didn't properly represent reality, he took out a photo of his wife from his wallet and said: "This is how my wife should look, not in some silly stylized representation." Picasso took the photo, studied it for a few moments and asked: "This is your wife?" The businessman proudly nodded. "She's very small," observed Picasso.

Tip: Don't have a monopoly on how things are. Things aren't always what they seem. Be ready to consider other points of view.

3. Avoid Yo-Yo Thinking.

Some people tend to have a tendency to swing from a highly positive mood one minute to a highly negative one the next, all because of what they see in front of them. It's like a yo-yo: up one minute, down the next. It's far more healthy to stay neutral and not let emotions get the better of you.

Tip: Remember that things are rarely as good - or as bad - as you think they are.

4. Get Rid Of Lazy Thinking Habits.

Habit can be a major stumbling block to clear thinking and another example of laziness. Try this experiment. Write down the Scottish surnames Macdonald, Macpherson, and Macdougall and ask someone to pronounce them. Now follow these with the word Machinery and see what happens. Most people are likely to mis-pronounce it. This is because we tend to think in habitual ways and don't like what doesn't fit.

Tip: Don't think that, just because things happened in a certain way once before, that they will happen like that again.

5. Don't Think Like An Old Person, Think Like A Child.

Research shows that the number of synapses, or connections, in the brain is greater in a child of two than in an average adult. The reason for this is that, while a child of two has no limiting world view, as adults we do. It's like a sculptor who starts off with a large block of clay, more than he needs, and then gradually removes the clay as he moulds his sculpture. If we use our brain like a child, accepting everything without judgment, we can actually halt and reverse the brain ageing process.

Tip: Don't worry about the myth of age. With the right stimulus and a passion for learning, you can actually improve your brain's powers.

6. See The Detail As Well As The Big Picture.

You may know the poem by John Godfrey Saxe called "The Blind Men and the Elephant". This tells how six blind men of Indostan go to see an elephant and each try to work out what it is from touching it. One blind man touches the tusk, another the trunk, another the tail, and so on. Of course, not being able to see the whole elephant, they come to wildly different conclusions.

Tip: Try to keep the big picture in front of you while looking at details. It will help to put everything in its proper place and context.

7. Think For Yourself.

Taking time out to think is still frowned on in many organizations that prize activity over creativity. People who work in creativity-constrained organizations are likely to think the way they are supposed to think, or as others think, or as has always been the way to think. It's like the blinkered thinking that Hans Christian Anderson describes in his story of "The Emperor's New Clothes". Everyone in the land refuses to see that the emperor is naked and has been duped into believing he is wearing a splendid costume for his coronation. Only a young boy who has been ill and not party to the cultural brainwashing can see the truth and cries out: "Look, everyone, the Emperor is wearing no clothes!"

Tip: Don't let others tell you how to think. When others ask your opinion, tell it to them straight.

Once you make these 7 techniques part of your habitual thinking patterns, you will amaze yourself with how easy it is to come up with fresh, innovative and creative solutions to all of life's problems.

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The Food of Abundance

12/20/2012

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It’s tempting when you’re struggling with money issues to think that this really is a cruel unfriendly world. There you are, working your socks off, and it’s all money out, out, out, leaving you constantly on the bread line while others around you seem to have anything and everything they want.

But just as the sun seems to move around the earth rather than the earth around the sun, that’s just an illusion. I’m going to show you that, despite your tight financial circumstances, you are infinitely richer than you think. And that, when you discover just how abundant your life is, your financial situation will dramatically change as well.

We tend to think that abundance, or wealth, or riches, or the flow of all good things, is confined to having money. Well, it isn’t. Here are six other kinds of abundance that are almost certainly available to you right now, without any investment or effort on your part. Once you focus on these areas of abundance, you will find that your AA, or “Abundance Attitude” will automatically trigger a corresponding reaction in the state of your finances and make you abundant financially as well.

1. Creative Abundance.

Even if you don’t have a nickel, penny or a yen to your name, you can still have a torrent of great ideas. For the truth of the matter is that, while God did not create money, (it’s purely a human concept), He did create a thought-based Universe. There are no limits to your thoughts. You can have as many as you want. You can make them as grand as you want. Your thoughts literally travel around the Universe and even, say some, through all time. Allow yourself to dream of what you can bring into this world and you’ll realize how abundant you really are. More to the point, all your money-spinning ideas come from your thoughts. It’s a huge, free and endlessly renewable resource. Use it.

2. Choice Abundance.

Unless you are reading this from a prison cell, you are a free person, with free will, and free choices about how to live your life. So, if your present circumstances are not what you want, all you have to do is change your choices for something else and you’ll get a different result. Choose another habit, another action, another way of working, another style, another task, another location, another venture. You have an abundance of choices in every moment of your life. Choose wisely.

3. Gifts Abundance.

Many people who remain poor in their lives do so because they don’t realize how gifted they really are. They are locked in to a victim mentality where any number of excuses are used to explain why they don’t have what they want. There’s the excuse of “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not wealthy enough” or “I’m not lucky enough” or any other similar phrase. The truth is that God has not singled out anyone to have more gifts than anyone else. We are all uniquely – and abundantly – gifted. Once you find out what your gifts are – through a process of experience, trial and error, feedback from others, and honest self-assessment – then you’ll find yourself in an Aladdin’s cave of treasure that will grant you endless wishes for the rest of your life. You are abundantly talented and you owe it to God who has gifted you these talents to find them and use them.

4. Health Abundance.

Even if you find yourself down on your luck financially, there’s no reason why you cannot bask in the glow of abundant health. One of the ironies of modern life is that many people are caught in the trap of working long hours in order to have enough money to buy the antidotes to the stressful and unhealthy lifestyle they lead. They work to excess so that they can buy the holidays they need to recover from their excessive working. The fact is, you were meant to live a healthy and abundant life, full of energy and vitality. It is your birthright. If you seek out how to live the abundantly healthy lifestyle you were meant to live, it may well be the financially wealthy who envy you!

5. Love Abundance.

The idea that we are all abundant in love may sound sentimental, but there is no getting away from the fact that, while your capacity to earn has limits – even for the super-wealthy – your capacity to love and be loved is without limits. When you uncork the Love stoppers in your life, you release such a flow of good things for yourself and others, that it’s like champagne all the way. Give and show love to those who are important to you. Love strangers rather than fearing or judging them. Love every creature you share this planet with. Love what you do each day. And most of all love yourself. Don’t be sentimental about it. Love is the most powerful force in the universe. And there are no limits to it if you’ll just let yourself do it.

6. Material Abundance.

Our modern age has brainwashed most people into believing that without money they are not materially rich. This is simply a clever marketing ploy aimed at making the perpetrators of the myth money-rich themselves. The truth is that God, who, you remember, didn’t invent money, created you to enjoy the fruits of the earth in abundance whether you have money or not. You simply don’t need a big house, a big yacht, a villa in Spain, a six-figure income, and four holidays a year to enjoy abundance. And the place to look? Well, it’s not in the man-made malls and supermarkets. It’s in nature. Wander through a wood in autumn and see the sheer abundance of food for free. Walk along a beach after a stormy sea to see what has been given you for free. Turn your small garden patch into a summertime larder. Look at the wonders of nature and you’ll never again believe that you must have lots of money to live happily and well.

7. And now for the key to your financial future.

When you focus on these six areas of super-abundance – your endless gift for creativity, your infinite range of life choices, your unique talents, your inalienable right to health, your unlimited capacity to love, and the cornucopia of the natural world – you cannot help but live a wonderfully abundant life. If you really believe that abundance and wealth is already yours, you will create the seventh abundance with astonishing ease. And money will flow into your life as if by magic.

Believe me, I can testify that it has happened to me.

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The 7 Keys To Your Creative Genius

11/11/2012

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1. Think Like A Child.

As adults we tend to think in a conditioned way aimed at showing how clever we are. Yet, as children, we were simply spontaneous and far more creative in our thinking. To re-capture your childhood curiosity, allow yourself to just wonder at things, to be completely present in the here and now, and to detach yourself from what you thought was real.

2. Make New Connections.

To be innovative doesn't require a university degree; it simply requires making a connection between existing ideas. For instance, did you know that ice cream was invented in 2000 BC yet it took another 3900 years for someone to come up with the idea of a cone? It's when you take two seemingly unrelated items and use the spark of creativity that genius happens.

3. Be A Little Illogical.

It is a peculiarly Western trait to want to tie things up in neat bundles. We prefer solutions to problems, and answers to questions. To be creative, you need to be comfortable with things that don't fit. The Eastern tradition is more in tune with incongruence. As in this Zen koan, or problem: what is the sound of one hand clapping?

4. Laugh More.

Tom Peters says that the creativity of a workplace can be measured by a laughometer, ie how much it laughs. Humour is one of the greatest creative devices. It jolts us out of our normal patterns and puts ideas together that shouldn't go together. It has been found that after listening to comedy tapes, students’ ability to solve problems rises by 60%.

5. Think Outside Your Limits.

Many of the products we take for granted today are the result of people thinking outside their limits. John Lynn recalls attending a computer conference in the 1980's at a hotel when someone joked that the next thing they'd be thinking of would be computerised doors. When he went back to the same hotel 20 years later, all the doors used computer-programmed key cards.

6. Adopt and Adapt.

To be creative doesn't require blue-sky thinking. You can still be creative by adapting what works elsewhere. An American airline that wanted quicker turnarounds on their flights adopted the techniques of Formula One pit crews. Another source of ideas is nature. Georges de Mestral adapted the way certain seeds stick to clothing and invented Velcro.

7. Remember Your Dreams.

Dreaming and day-dreaming can create a rich seam of ideas, because that's when we relax and let the subconscious mind work by itself. Reasearchers call this "washing-up creativity" because most flashes of inspiration come when we are walking the dog, sitting Archimedes-like in the bath, or doing the washing up.

Apply these 7 creative thinking techniques and make them part of your daily thinking and I guarantee that new solutions to your problems will open up to you with ease and speed.

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Creativity - How To Have More

11/9/2012

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To have more creativity, follow this two-step plan:
1. Encourage creativity.
2. Train your brain to be more creative.

Start on both of these right now, and you can experience greater creativity today.

Encourage your creativity and you'll increase your creativity. Of course, this is true of most things you want to see more of in your life. Encouragement can work wonders, but how do you encourage creativity?

Start by paying attention to it. Our subconscious minds tends to give us more of what we pay attention to. Ignore the creative aspects of your life, and you are telling your subconscious that they are unimportant. Consciously note when you're creative, and your subconscious mind will start feeding you more creative ideas. Just look for it and you'll find more of it.

You can encourage creativity by writing your ideas down. Start keeping an "idea journal." Do this regularly, and you'll notice that you often start having more ideas the moment you start to write. A so-so idea may normally be forgotten, but by writing it down, you may remember it. Then your subconscious can work on it, and may transform into something very creative.

For more creativity in your life, start putting creative ideas into practice. If you paint, paint something totally different from your usual subjects. If you sell houses, try a new approach. Even just driving a different route to work to see if it is quicker can encourage your creativity. Just get your mind working outside of its regular patterns.

Changing your surroundings can encourage creativity. For more creativity in your love life, go hike up a mountain with your partner. If you write, try sitting on a roof to write. For new ideas for your business, take a notebook to the park and sit by the duck pond. Any change of enviroment can get your brain out of it's ruts.

To dramatically increase your creativity, develop creative habits of mind. If you watch a good comedian, you'll see that she has trained her mind to look for the "different angle" on everyday things. Why not train your mind to do the same?

Start challenging assumptions, for example, until it becomes habit. If you're looking for ways to get more customers, stop and say, "Do I really need more customers?" It's a question that suggests other creative solutions, like finding ways to make more money off existing customers, or ways to cut expenses. It could lead to more profitable ideas. Challenge assumptions is a great way to have more creativity in your problem solving.

While driving to work, randomly choose anything you see and ask what it can teach you about whatever problem you are working on. A helicopter might make you think about a way to track where the car goes when you loan it to your kids. Palm trees may lead to a new design for patio umbrellas.

These two techniques are called "Assumption Challenging" and "Random Presentation," and are classic creative problem solving techniques. There are dozens more. If you train your brain to habitually use these or other techniques, and provide it with a little encouragement, you really can have more creativity.

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Balance: Entreprenurial or Workaholic?

Permission To Be An Artist - Granted!

7 Blocks To Creative Thinking And How To Solve Them

The Food of Abundance

The 7 Keys To Your Creative Genius

Creativity - How To Have More

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