A group of magicians were shown a trick in which an ace of spades popped up out of the middle of a deck of cards. They were asked how the trick might have been done and they provided elaborate instructions about how to perform the sleight of hand. A group of children were shown the same trick and asked the same question. "Are all the cards in the deck aces of spades?" they asked. This was the opening anecdote in the engaging "Wake Your Mind Up" workshop (put on by the Mind Gym) I recently attended. Through a series of stories and exercises, we were reminded how our minds can switch over to autopilot and how that limits our ability to see the entire picture in front of us. We learned about how curiosity, taking on different perspectives, and using reflection time can help us break this pattern.
Creative thinking has long been one of my favorite topics, and it was great to just get immersed in it again for an hour or so with Mind Gym. It's one of those topics that, as much as I love it, I need to be periodically reminded of it in order to re-engage with it. I highly encourage everyone to give creativity exercises a try now and then, to learn more about creativity (some resources I especially like are listed below), and to remain open to new ways of thinking about and looking at things, which is kind of all creativity really is. Enjoy!
... AND AN UPDATE
So, I wrote in my last post that I was going to try to respond to ideas I didn't initially like by sharing three things I did like about them and three things I would change. That didn't work too well this past week. Turns out people don't often announce, "Now I am going to share with you an idea you won't like so you can use this tool..." Often I'd be well on the path of putting an idea down before I even realized I'd been presented with one. I'll have to try this one again. Any one else try it? What kind of results did you have?
CREATIVE THINKING RESOURCES
- A Whack on the Side of the Head, Roger von Oech
- How to be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum, Keri Smith
- Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creativity for the 90's, Michael Michalko
- Five Star Mind: Games and Puzzles to Stimulate Your Creativity & Imagination, Tom Wujec
- Everyday Creativity, Dewitt Jones (video)
Try a couple of these to get your mind working in new (and creative) ways...
- Wear your watch on your other wrist; take a different route home; go straight to a different room than usual when you arrive at home, listen to a different genre of music.
- Do a logic puzzle; or better yet, write your own logic puzzle - or a crossword, word search or Suduku.
- Look at a picture of people you don't know. Come up with several stories about who they are and what was happening when the photo was taken.
- Try looking at a problem or a project from several different perspectives: How would someone from another planet view this? What would a child think about it? How would a politician sell this idea? How would an advertiser position it? Creative thinker (and inventor of "lateral thinking) Edward DeBono, suggests putting on one of six thinking hats when thinking about a decision or dilemma:
- Information: (White) - considering purely what information is available, what are the facts?
- Emotions (Red) - instinctive gut reaction or statements of emotional feeling
- Bad points judgment (Black) - logic applied to identifying flaws or barriers, seeking mismatch
- Good points judgment (Yellow) - logic applied to identifying benefits, seeking harmony
- Creativity (Green) - statements of provocation and investigation, seeing where a thought goes
- Thinking (Blue) - thinking about thinking
- Get curious. An exercise I had to do during my coaching certification was to look under my kitchen sink for 10 minutes and just be curious. I wasn't to move / clean / fix anything. I was just to observe and be curious. This one gets both at seeing things differently and also the whole concept of reflection time. It's harder than it might seem. Alternatively, you can just make it a goal to ask a whole lot of questions about things or people you don't know in the coming week.
- “If you trip down one step, don’t throw yourself down the rest of the flight.” ~ Weight Watchers
- "Men are born to succeed, not fail." ~ Henry David Thoreau
- "If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are." ~ Zen proverb
- "A jug fills drop by drop." ~ Buddha
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