Thursday, April 18, 2013

  Innovate or Evaporate - Power Up Your Brain for Creativity

Creativity is the currency of the future and is how we as a nation will continue to move forward.  The factory floor will never return to the USA, thus innovation and constant creativity is the lifeblood of every business.

Things You Can Do to Stimulate Creativity:

1. Make it a habit to keep on the lookout and keep a journal for new and interesting ideas. Your idea needs to be original only in its adaptation to the problem you are working on.

Genius has tolerance for the unpredictable. Ask yourself.  Is it crazy enough to be correct?   Logic hides in the illogic. Your idea must, at first, be absurd. Ask Einstein! You must be willing to get out of your comfort zone and take a risk.

Create "do nothing" time. People with disabilities are often more creative because they are excused from all the busy stuff like doing errands and have time to just think.

Just THINKING about possibilities and day dreaming lights up the brain and expands the motor strip and neural pathways to manifest our thoughts and intentions.

Visualizing and "feeling" the imagined and desired goal will make it manifest into reality.  Encourage "free wheeling" and let your imaginations soar.

EXPECT the results you desire and feed your brain with positive thoughts to sustain a positive belief system. Expect constant creativity from everyone on your team and reward it.  One of the airlines offered a whopping $25.00 to any attendant who came up with a money-saving idea.  The winning idea saved the airline about $80,000 in just one year. She noticed that most people did not eat their olives which are expensive. Besides, who really determines what airline they choose to fly because of the olives they serve. 

 Screen, filter and get ride of negative thoughts such as fear, doubt and worry that result from the flight/fight response of the instinctual brain. Numb the critical, left brain so the right brain can get into the "flow."  Creativity is spontaneity upon demand and at will.

Put time limits on tasks to keep on track and maintain focus and direction. Have a "not-to-do" list as creativity is not built up but reveals itself through a process of elimination.  Michelangelo's David was created by "taking away," and he himself proclaimed,  "In every rock of marble I see a statue, I merely chisel away so others can see what I already know."

Go within.  Quarantine the amygdala to create a state of "calm." Meditation, yoga, prayer, deep breathing, self hypnosis and other methods that encourage a shift from a Beta to an Alpha brain-wave activity state create an inner environment where our mind becomes an idea generator. Even slowing down your speech will shift your consciousness and help generate ideas.

Have an Idea Drawer. Observe what is not complete and then complete it so the cracks become the source of light.

Give technology a break. Excessive use of technology "dumbs" us by 10 percent, twice the negative effect of smoking marijuana.  Get back to cursive writing which stimulates the creativity centers of the brain.

Brain storming can be effective but it must be done sequentially. For example, you don't want left-brain, critical thinkers interrupting the "flow" of the right-brain people. Another suggestion is to do solo brain storming where people can reflect and then come together and pool their ideas and diverse thinking styles. Reflective thinking should be done with the pen because it stimulates the creative juices.

Rid your self of preconceived notions and stereotypic thinking that derails possibility thinking and truth.  For example, when Joshua Bell was playing his 3.5 million dollar violin in the subways of New York City, only the small children with their minds wide open were awe-struck by the brilliance of this young musician.  Their parents saw one of the most exquisite violinists of all times as a street musician and rushed by him to buy tickets for $500.00 and hear him perform in the theater that evening.

See crisis as opportunity.  It is how KFC was created as was whiteout and the stick em's we all use daily. See every block and barrier as a new possibility and solution to a problem. 

In a truckers' strike years back, those passing the picket line had the tires of their trucks blown out by shot guns closing down all transportation.  However, it was urgent that certain materials be transported from Chicago to Indianapolis. Simple but creative problem solving and out-of-the-box thinking got the job done.  A man dressed as a nun drove a yellow school bus carrying the cargo safely to its destination without any shots fired, of course.  After all, who would shoot at a nun in a school bus? 

 Connect the dots and combine the dissimilar. Reverse assumptions. What do cars and pigs have in common? Start with dissent and what is wrong to find out what is right. In other words, build on the flaws which again is how stick em's and whiteout were invented.

Ask questions. Questions ignite creative thought processes.  Ask yourself continually, what can I do to make it better?  How can I alter, adapt, magnify, add or eliminate? How can I rearrange and reverse it?

17. Become "one" with the problem. To find better ways to move the cardboard box, become the box!

Do mirror writing.  Leonardo da Vinci would write from right to left to make the brain see opposite directions and thus break old thought patterns that limit and stifle new thoughts.  Patterns are efficient and convenient, but unfortunately make us robots. Think about how to get the water rather than making the water come to us. Start with the end goal.

Try this exercise. Lift your right fool and begin to move it clockwise. Then draw the number 6 in the air with your right hand. Notice that your foot changed direction to be in sync with your hand. The brain is preprogramed and that requires conscious disruption so that new ideas can be generated.

Do some cosmic fishing. Trust the brain in your gut and your intuitive intelligence which is logic at the speed of light. Listen to your inner voice that speaks so softly but can make a big difference. Almost all Nobel Prize winners credit their intuition as the spark to their invention.

Know your true talent. Get in sync with your instincts and then think BIG, dare to dream and be BOLD. 

Edie Raether, M.S., CSP is an international speaker and corporate trainer on innovation and creativity.  She is also the bestselling author of several books and can be visited at www.raether.com.