Genius Requires A Child-Like Attitude

Source: The Creativity Post, Jun 2012

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”… Pablo Picasso

Children have the capacity for learning and transforming and changing what they think about their experiences and for imagining other ways that the world could be. A movie, “The Mystery of Picasso,” exhibited Picasso at work. He started at an arbitrary point and painted a flower, transformed it into a fish, then into a chicken, switching back and forth from black and white to color, he then refashioned the composition into a cat surrounded on the side by human beings.

“Everything you can imagine is real.”… Pablo Picasso

He was constantly “present” in his everyday life and, like a child, saw the hidden beauty of the world by not analyzing, labeling and judging the people and things in his environment. This might sound strange but in the moments when you are “present” the ordinary world becomes more interesting and wonderful. Colors can seem brighter. You see more aliveness in trees, nature and in people. You see the wonder of being alive. Things that most often seem common, routine and boring become fascinating and something you can appreciate.

Too much time and experience thinking in a certain way is uncongenial to creativity. The mind becomes so set and so organized that we seem to lose the ability to create new ideas or even to recognize ideas developed by others. This is why activities like “color walk” help us become playfully aware of our environment and the miracles of life. All you need do is suspend your ordinary way of interpreting your surroundings and temporarily discover new ways of thinking about what you perceive. It will boost your ability to come up with creative new ideas. 

Scratch a genius and you will surprise a child. Like children, they discover ways to make things still feel fresh. When you become playfully aware, you are observing your world with more clarity and curiousness. Following is an exercise to give a different way to think about words

Feynman: Feeling Sluggish Today?

Source: Feynman Algorithm website, date indeterminate

Feynman is so smart, when people exclaimed, “Who do you think you are, some kinda Einstein!?” he’d reply, “Why yes, I am feeling sluggish today.”

Learning to Estimate One’s Own Abilities

Source: Time, Jun 2012

… our young people actually have no idea whether they’re particularly talented or accomplished or not. In our eagerness to elevate their self-esteem, we forgot to teach them how to realistically assess their own abilities, a crucial requirement for getting better at anything from math to music to sports. In fact, accurate self-evaluation is a skill the rest of us could stand to acquire, too.

First, we can learn to make honest comparisons with others. Train yourself to recognize excellence, even when you don’t yourself possess it, and compare what you can do against what truly excellent individuals are able to accomplish.

Second, seek out feedback that is frequent, accurate and specific. Find a critic who will tell you not only how poorly you’re doing, but just what it is you’re doing wrong. As Dunning and Kruger note, success indicates to us that everything went right, but failure is more ambiguous: any number of things could have gone wrong. Use this external feedback to figure out exactly where and when you screwed up.

Daydreaming Can Lead to Greater Creativity

Source: The New Yorker, Jun 2012

… whenever we are slightly bored—when reality isn’t quite enough for us—we begin exploring our own associations, contemplating counterfactuals and fictive scenarios that only exist within the head.

the only activity during which we report that our minds are not constantly wandering is “love making.” We’re able to focus for that.

the scientists argue that their data show why “creative solutions may be facilitated specifically by simple external tasks that maximize mind-wandering.” The benefit of these simple tasks is that they consume just enough attention to keep us occupied, while leaving plenty of mental resources left over for errant daydreams.

“Rethinking Giftedness and Gifted Education”

Source: The Creativity Post, Jun 2012

The monograph can be found HERE.

Creativity: Will, Skill and Drill

Source: The Creativity Post, Jun 2012

… creativity is not simply a gift given to a chosen few, but a set of skills that can be learned and developed.

thinking more creatively and productively is all about will, skill and drill.

First, you have to want to. That’s the will. You have to have the attitude that there’s always a better way. You have to be dissatisfied. One of the things we say in my company is that every itch is an opportunity. You don’t have to look very far to find something ripe for improvement, whether a product or a service.

Once the will is there, you have to develop a set of skills. One of my favorite quotes is by Jerry Hirschberg, former CEO of Nissan Design, who said, “Creativity is not an escape from disciplined thinking. It’s an escape with disciplined thinking.”  In other words, you have to learn how. A very few people learn that by themselves, but most of us need help. We start with creative heuristics developed by others — thinkers from Heraclitus to Leonardo to Edison. We discover the tools and approaches that work for us, and then possibly we evolve our own. No matter what route you take to develop them, there’s no doubt that skills play a significant part in the creative process.

Finally, you have to drill. In other words, you have to practice.  It takes work and mistakes and corrections and more work again. Eventually you start to make some breakthroughs. Then you build on those. And you keep going until you’ve got something that works, that’s really new, that really makes a difference.

Weird Experiences Stimulate Creativity!

Source: The Creativity Post, Jun 2012

Creative people think differently. But why? There is no magic bullet or single pill. We all have the potential for creativity, but there are so many different triggers that can broaden our minds, inspire, and motivate.  … Since creativity is so important for individual well-being and societal innovation, it’s important that we systematically pull the right triggers.

A crucial trigger is the experience of unusual and unexpected events. These events can take many different forms, ranging from the loss a parent to living abroad. But one need not experience any of these specific events to think more creatively. In a recent paper in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Simone Ritter and colleagues propose that any life experience, from the traumatic to the joyful, can lead to flexibility and creativity as long as it diversifies your experiences and pushes you outside your normal thought patterns.

The core feature is actively experiencing a violation of how things are supposed to happen. The results help explain why periods of immigration often precede extraordinary periods of creative achievement: Immigrants bring their own customs and ideas to a new environment, diversifying experiences for everyone.

These results also suggest that if you want to get into a creative mindset, do your normal routine in a completely different way. Write with your other hand. Moonwalk backwards on your way to work. Eat something new for lunch. Smile at strangers. Be weird. With your brain re-shuffled, you’ll be in a better position to be creative.

Letting Go

Source: HBR blog, Jun 2012

I’ve come up with four questions I now ask myself each time I begin to wonder if it’s time to ease back on something or someone I’ve been pursuing.

Here they are:

1. Do I have a feeling in my gut that this dog just won’t hunt?
2. How important will this seem to me in six months?
3. How important will this seem to me in two years?
4. Is there a more enjoyable and productive way I could be investing my time and energy right now?

If the answer to 1 and 4 are “yes,” or the answers to 2 and 3 are “not much,” it’s time to let go.

Understanding Creativity (a wee bit better)

Source: Forbes, Jun 2012

…  iconoclast don’t just think differently, they have different brains—literally. That is, they don’t just think differently, they perceive differently.

Here’s how he explains it: ”At every step in the process of visual perception, the brain throws out pieces of information and assimilates the remaining ones into increasingly abstract components. Experience plays a major role in this process. The human brain sees things in ways that are most familiar to it. But epiphanies rarely occur in familiar surroundings. The key to seeing like an iconoclast is to look at things that you have never seen before.”

… finding someone who is constantly seeking out new sights, sounds, information—whatever—is a decent marker to look for when trying to hire creative employees. But to go one better, why not seek out someone who doesn’t just seek out the new, but rather someone who sees the old as new again.

Creativity, then, is not just taking in the new with much frequency. It’s a way of seeing the old as new, the downstream product of a long-term habit in altered perception. And this is the only proven work-around for our sheepish tendencies.

So if you’re trying to build a creative organization and looking over resumes, pay attention to past experiences. Hobbies and work. Look for those activities that require perceptual shifts for success. Have the potential employees been forced to train their brain to see things anew? Because, without this long term training our innate tendency is think similarly.

We’re hardwired not to be creative. Changing that requires ceaseless effort. The world is either our playground or our prison, there’s just no other option. So what are you looking for in potential employees?

Why a playground mindset, of course.

Correcting Myths about Introverts

Source: Creativity Post, Jun 2012

Myth #1 – Introverts don’t like to talk.
 Introverts just don’t talk unless they have something to say.

Myth #2 – Introverts are shy. Shyness has nothing to do with being an Introvert. Introverts are not necessarily afraid of people. What they need is a reason to interact. They don’t interact for the sake of interacting.

Myth #3 – Introverts are rude.
Introverts often don’t see a reason for beating around the bush with social pleasantries. They want everyone to just be real and honest.

Myth #4 – Introverts don’t like people.
On the contrary, Introverts intensely value the few friends they have. They can count their close friends on one hand.

Myth #5 – Introverts don’t like to go out in public.
Nonsense. Introverts just don’t like to go out in public FOR AS LONG.

Myth #6 – Introverts always want to be alone.
Introverts are perfectly comfortable with their own thoughts. They think a lot. They daydream. They like to have problems to work on, puzzles to solve. But they can also get incredibly lonely if they don’t have anyone to share their discoveries with. They crave an authentic and sincere connection with ONE PERSON at a time.

Myth #7 – Introverts are weird.
Introverts are often individualists. They don’t follow the crowd. They’d prefer to be valued for their novel ways of living. They think for themselves and because of that, they often challenge the norm. They don’t make most decisions based on what is popular or trendy.

Myth #8 – Introverts are aloof nerds.
Introverts are people who primarily look inward, paying close attention to their thoughts and emotions. It’s not that they are incapable of paying attention to what is going on around them, it’s just that their inner world is much more stimulating and rewarding to them.

Myth #9 – Introverts don’t know how to relax and have fun.
Introverts typically relax at home or in nature, not in busy public places.

Myth #10 – Introverts can fix themselves and become Extroverts.
 … one study (Silverman, 1986) showed that the percentage of Introverts increases with IQ.