Jumpstart Your Creativity by Shawn Doyle & Steven Rowell & Steven Rowell

Author:Shawn Doyle & Steven Rowell & Steven Rowell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sound Wisdom Publishers
Published: 2013-01-26T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 4

INDIVIDUAL CREATIVITY

My future starts when I wake up every

morning. Every day I find something creative

to do with my life.

—MILES DAVIS

IN this chapter we give you some ideas, strategies, and tools for developing your own individual creativity. As we have pointed out in previous chapters, you already have the ability to be creative; in fact, we believe you have the ability to be a creative genius because you were born with it! Now the idea is to take your creativity, wake it up, slap it around, shake it up, and put it to good use.

The first question you have to ask yourself is, “How do I spur my own creativity?” Think of creativity as a magnificent horse. You are using your spurs to motivate it to higher levels of performance. A spur is a pointed device secured to a rider’s heel used to urge on the horse. We want you to urge on your creativity stallion!

How? Let’s explore some of the techniques you can experiment with to discover what your specific spurs are for kicking your creativity into high gear. For example, one of the activities that inspires Shawn and stimulates his creativity is visiting art museums. Another element is being able to talk to a very creative and innovative person and bounce ideas off of that person. Steven loves attending conferences and participating in webinars where people are talking about new strategies and unique ideas. He also enjoys reading articles in magazines or on websites that have unique approaches to something that greatly spurs his creativity. The key is to find out what it is for you, and there is no one, right answer because the answer is different for each person.

There is a well-known story about Edwin Land, who one day was walking with his daughter in the woods. He took a picture of his daughter with his camera and his daughter then said, “Daddy, can I see the picture you just took of me?” He patiently explained to his daughter that she could not see the picture right away; she had to wait for it to be developed. As a child she did not understand why she had to wait and found the idea to be somewhat ridiculous. This got Land thinking, “Why can’t a picture be seen right away? Why do we have to wait to see a picture?” He immediately began working on what would eventually become the world-famous Polaroid Instant camera, released in 1948. The spur for his individual creativity was words from a child. The spark or the stimulation can come from any source. (Incredibly, sixty-one years later, in 2009, Polaroid announced their new Z2300 Instant Camera that prints a 2” × 3” smudge-proof, tear-proof, full color photo print.)

The question you need to ask yourself is (after careful observation), “Both in the past and in the present, what are items, events, or processes that stimulate and spur my individual creativity?” For some people it may be gardening. For others, it may be cycling. And for others, it may be watching an old movie or walking along a river or swimming in the ocean.

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