Creativity is intelligence having fun.

Permission To Be Creative 

We're all a little suspect of our own talent. Most of us really want to offer the world something of quality, something that the world will consider as good or important. But that's the enemy, because it's not up to us whether what we do is any good. If we look upon the history it will taught us that the world is extremely unreliable critic. You just have to ask your self 'Do human creativity matters?'﻿

What Is Creativity?

If you're an artist for example people can make fun of what you do. People can consider you as an idiot and your production as useless. But you should know that it's your job, you have to play the fool. Most of the people around the world have to go to the job all day long. To make money then return home to their family. And whatever you do is your job and Play the fool.

Find Your Calling

When the life doesn't go the way we want, when someone really close to our heart dies. All of a sudden you're desperate for making sense out of this life. You started thinking "Has anybody ever felt this bad before?" And "How did they come out of this cloud?"Or when the inverse happens you meet somebody and your heart explodes. You love them so much that you can't even see straight. You know, you're dizzy. Now you think "Did anybody feel like this before?" And "what is happening to me?"And that's when art is not luxury it's actually sustenance. We need it.

Art Is Not Luxury It's Sustenance 

When you ask what is art? Well Human creativity is manifest in us. When you truly love someone you find that your lover is pretty beautiful. When you look at your children playing on their own, jumping and running around the house doing anything. You feel that's so beautiful. That's why kids are so beautiful because they don't have any habits. They don't care if they're any good or not. They just throw themselves at whatever project you put in front of them. Whatever they do they try to impress upon you their individuality

Human Creativity Is Manifest In Us

We are here on this star of space to help one another. At first we have to survive and then we have to thrive. And to thrive, we have to express ourselves and to express ourselves we have to know our selves.In knowing ourselves we start searching what we love and when we get close to what we love who you are is revealed to you. And it expands. When you expand you start to see how connected we all are. We realise art is vital.

It's Vital...Art Is Vital

It's the way we heal each other. In poetries, novels, musics, dancing, acting. In telling our story, in inviting you to say. "Hey, listen to me and I'll listen to you", we're starting a dialogue and the healing happens and we're coming out of our corners, we start witnessing each other's common humanity. We start to assert it. If you want to help your community, your family, your friends, your loved ones you have to express yourself. And to express yourself you have to know yourself. You just have to follow your love.There is no path till you walk it and you have to be willing to play the fool

Play The Fool

Don't read the book you should read, read the book you want to read. Don't listen to the music you used to but come out of your comfort zone and try another genre

Do The Odd

We often ignore that we all are creative in some way. All we have to do is to find the calling and follow our love.

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

creativity

Creativity

TED-Give yourself permission to be creative.

When people give you advice, they're really just talking to themselves in the past.This book is me talking to a previous version of myself.

All advice is autobiographical

The writer Jonathan Lethem has said that when people call something " original," nine out of ten times they just don't know the references or the original sources involved.What a good artist understands is that nothing comes from nowhere. All creative work builds on what came before. Nothing is completely original. It's right there in the Bible: "There is nothing new under the sun."

Nothing is original.

Just as you have a familial genealogy, you also have a genealogy of ideas. You don't get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers and you can pick your friends and you can pick the music you listen to and you can pick the books you read and you can pick the movies you see.You are, in fact, a mashup of what you choose to let into your life. You are the sum of your influences. The German writer Goethe said, "We are shaped and fashioned by what we love."

The Genealogy of ideas

There's an economic theory out there that if you take the incomes of your five closest friends and average them, the resulting number will be pretty close to your own income.I think the same thing is true of our idea incomes. You're only going to be as good as the stuff you surround yourself with.

Garbage in, Garbage out

It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.

You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself. That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side. When Mr. Kleon was asked to address college students in upstate New York, he shaped his speech around the ten things he wished someone had told him when he was starting out. The talk went viral, and its author dug deeper into his own ideas to create Steal Like an Artist, the book. The result is inspiring, hip, original, practical, and entertaining. And filled with new truths about creativity: Nothing is original, so embrace influence, collect ideas, and remix and re-imagine to discover your own path. Follow your interests wherever they take you. Stay smart, stay out of debt, and risk being boring—the creative you will need to make room to be wild and daring in your imagination.

marketingandsales

Marketing & Sales

books

Books

You don’t need to be a genius, you just need to be yourself. That’s the message from Austin Kleon, a young writer and artist who knows that creativity is everywhere, creativity is for everyone. A manifesto for the digital age, Steal Like an Artist is a guide whose positive message, graphic look and illustrations, exercises, and examples will put readers directly in touch with their artistic side. When Mr. Kleon was asked to address college students in upstate New York, he shaped his speech around the ten things he wished someone had told him when he was starting out. The talk went viral, and its author dug deeper into his own ideas to create Steal Like an Artist, the book. The result is inspiring, hip, original, practical, and entertaining. And filled with new truths about creativity: Nothing is original, so embrace influence, collect ideas, and remix and re-imagine to discover your own path. Follow your interests wherever they take you. Stay smart, stay out of debt, and risk being boring—the creative you will need to make room to be wild and daring in your imagination.

I’m a writer who draws. I make art with words and books with pictures. Author of Steal Like An Artist and other bestsellers. Visit my website: http://austinkleon.com/

Austin Kleon

Steal Like an Artist

William H. Gass was a boundary-breaking experimental writer, as well as a critic, essayist and philosophy professor. Most importantly, Gass was a reigning master of the art of the sentence, and every one he wrote, he wrote with singular purpose. “If I am anything as a writer, that is what I am: a stylist,” he said in an interview. “I am not a writer of short stories or novels or essays or whatever. I am a writer, in general. I am interested in how one writes anything.”

A Writer Interested In How One Writes Anything

”If someone asks me, ‘Why do you write?’ I can reply by pointing out that it is a very dumb question. Nevertheless, there is an answer. I write because I hate. A lot. Hard. And if someone asks me the inevitable next dumb question, ‘Why do you write the way you do?’ I must answer that I wish to make my hatred acceptable because my hatred is much of me, if not the best part. Writing is a way of making the writer acceptable to the world—every cheap, dumb, nasty thought, every despicable desire, every noble sentiment, every expensive taste.”

“Put All Those Nasty Thoughts You Have To Use”

“I was turned down for ten years. I couldn’t get a thing in print. My writing went nowhere. I guess you have to be persistent. Talent is just one element of the writing business. You also have to have a stubborn nature. That’s rarer even than the talent, I think. You have to be grimly determined. I certainly was disappointed; I got upset. But you have to go back to the desk again, to the mailbox once more, and await your next refusal.”

“Be Stubborn, Even In The Face Of Rejection”

“Getting even is one great reason for writing. The precise statement of the motive is tricky, but the clearest expression of my unwholesome nature and my mean motives appears in a line I like in [one of my books]: the character says, “I want to rise so high that when I shit I won’t miss anybody.” […] I also take considerable pleasure in giving obnoxious ideas the best expression I can. But getting even isn’t necessarily vicious. There are two ways of getting even: one is destructive and the other is restorative. It depends on how the scales are weighted. Justice, I think, is the word I want.”

“Get Even (Get Justice)”

“Even an ideologically driven artist who is working well has got to do that. Oh, he can create a character who speaks brilliantly from a half-baked point of view, but he cannot create a drama of conflict between points of view unless he can imaginatively put himself in two positions… Any work of art is going to be dangerous to a point of view. If you are an artist, you have to see not only why you can’t walk on air, but also why people who think you can, think so. Art objects are inhospitable to secure truths. People who are fearful of protecting their own truth can’t have them around.”

“See Around Your Subject”

“I write slowly because I write badly. I have to rewrite everything many, many times just to achieve mediocrity. Time can give you a good critical perspective, and I often have to go slow so that I can look back on what sort of botch of things I made three months ago. Much of the stuff which I will finally publish, with all its flaws, as if it had been dashed off with a felt pen, will have begun eight or more years earlier, and worried and slowly chewed on and left for dead many times in the interim.”

“Revise, Revise, Revise”

“I don’t think much about the reader. Ways of reading are adversaries—those theoretical ways. As far as writing something is concerned, the reader really doesn’t exist. The writer’s business is somehow to create in the work something which will stand on its own and make its own demands; and if the writer is good, he discovers what those demands are, and he meets them, and creates this thing which readers can then do what they like with. Gertrude Stein said, ‘I write for myself and strangers,’ and then eventually she said that she wrote only for herself.”

“Don’t Write For Anybody”

“I don’t believe in the novel that teaches. When you’re teaching, you’re engaged with something other than yourself. When you’re writing novels, you’re bringing things mainly out of yourself. You may be trying to make something that’s not autobiographical or self-reflective, but it’s made out of your character like a cake from flour. The consciousness it constructs may not be your everyday consciousness; nevertheless, it comes from your depths and not someone else’s. Whereas when you’re teaching you’re engaged with texts; it’s a different kind of thing.

“Don’t Write To Teach”

“Try to remember that artists in these catastrophic times, along with the serious scientists, are the only salvation for us, if there is to be any. Be happy because no one is seeing what you do, no one is listening to you, no one really cares what may be achieved, but sometimes accidents happen and beauty is born.”

“Don’t Despair”

Works of art are meant to be lived with and loved, and if we try to understand them, we should try to understand them as we try to understand anyone—in order to know them better, not in order to know something else.

...yes, words were superior; they maintained a superior control; they touched without your touching; they were at once the bait, the hook, the line, the pole, and the water in between.

The true alchemists do not change lead into gold; they change the world into words.

Thoughts on creativity, creators and their creations, three things that we have come to consider consubstantial, coincident and coexistent, but that are fundamentally separate and disparate. 

writing

Reading & Writing

communication

Communication

artsandculture

Society, Arts & Culture

William H. Gass’s Advice for Writers

Ed and Neil are in the top 0.000001% of their fields. They're among, say, 25 people in the world who repeatedly generate blockbusters.They both share the exact same creative process The creativity faucet.

Ed Sheeran and Neil Gaiman

Visualize your creativity as a backed-up pipe of water. The first mile is packed with wastewater.This wastewater must be emptied before the clear water arrives.Because your pipe has only one faucet, there's no shortcut to achieving clarity other than first emptying the wastewater.

The Creativity Faucet

At the beginning of a writing session, write out every bad idea that unavoidably comes to mind. Instead of being self-critical and resisting them, recognize bad ideas as progress.Once the bad ideas are emptied, strong ideas begin to arrive.

Applying to creativity

Once you've generated enough bad output, your mind reflexively identifies which elements caused the badness. Then it becomes good at avoiding them. You start pattern-matching interesting and novel ideas with greater intuition.Most creators resist their bad ideas and never reach the clear water. If you've opened a blank document, scribbled a few thoughts, then walked away because you weren't struck with gold, then you too never got past it.

Why does this work ?

Mozart had 600 musical compositions and Edison had 1093 patents. Only a few are remembered today, and that's the point.

A blog post explains how the greatest minds generate creative ideas. Neil Gaiman and Ed Sheeran share this approach.

problemsolving

Problem Solving

How to be more creative

“The Lord of the Rings” is not consciously based on anything but a complete “invention,” like the supposed Elvish languages. But there is no “invention” in the void, and naturally in digested form I am indebted to the myths and legends of literature.

Acknowledging the debt for the unconsciously digested ideas.  

“There’s No Invention In The Void.” J. R. R. Tolkien On His Inspiration For “The Lord of the Rings” Universe

An idealistic statement is how you wish the world worked. When you imagine an ideal world with a just cause, you devote your practice, energy and resources to advance that cause. The ideal will always be imperfect in its own way. Yet, striving towards it becomes very inspiring for a workforce because they feel like they're contributing to something larger than themselves.

The infinite mindset

When you think about innovation, if you say, "provide greater value for our clients", its not wrong, but when you want to innovate around that, the innovation tends to be more features and benefits. When you say, "innovate to advance x", the ideas can come from anywhere within the organization and tend to be much bigger.

A clearer path to embrace an infinite mindset

A Just Cause offers us a clearer path to embracing an Infinite Mindset. + + + Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game. + + + Website: http://simonsinek.com/ Live Online Classes: http://simonsinek.com/inspireU Podcast: http://apple.co/simonsinek Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/ Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinek Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek Simon’s books: The Infinite Game: https://simonsinek.com/product/the-in... Start With Why: https://simonsinek.com/product/start-... Find Your Why: https://simonsinek.com/product/find-your-why Leaders Eat Last: https://simonsinek.com/product/leader... Together is Better: https://simonsinek.com/product/togeth... + + + #SimonSinek

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

videos

Videos

A Just Cause offers us a clearer path to embracing an Infinite Mindset.

+ + +

Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. 

Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do.

Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game.

+ + +

Website: http://simonsinek.com/
Live Online Classes: http://simonsinek.com/inspireU
Podcast: http://apple.co/simonsinek
Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/
Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinek
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek

Simon’s books:
The Infinite Game: https://simonsinek.com/product/the-in...
Start With Why: https://simonsinek.com/product/start-...
Find Your Why: https://simonsinek.com/product/find-your-why
Leaders Eat Last: https://simonsinek.com/product/leader...
Together is Better: https://simonsinek.com/product/togeth...

+ + +

#SimonSinek

Simon Sinek is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together.

Simon has devoted his life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and return home fulfilled at the end of the day.  Every day is an opportunity to inspire someone. 

Official Simon Sinek brand account.

Learn more at simonsinek.com.

Simon Sinek

Build the world you imagine | Simon Sinek

Society is on the leading edge of a technology tsunami. Advances in artificial intelligence, the internet of Things, virtual reality, robotics, nanotechnology, deep learning, mapping the human brain, and biomedical, genetic, and cyborg engineering will revolutionize how most of us live and work. Technology will be able to learn, as well as teach and program itself. We call this next big step the Smart Machine Age, or SMA. The SMA has the potential to be as disruptive and transformative for us as the Agricultural Age and Industrial Revolution were for our ancestors.

Smart Machine Age

In the last few decades, the American worker has been outsourced, off-shored, and automated on many factory floors and in many routine tasks. Up next is broader and more encompassing automation that will likely affect many more workers, including many professionals.While automation has been happening for decades, now technology is even beginning to replace knowledge workers—accountants, business managers, doctors, lawyers, journalists, researchers, architects, higher-education teachers, and consultants.

Get Ready For The Next Ride

Smart technologies will become ubiquitous, invading and changing many aspects of our professional and personal lives and in many ways challenging our fundamental beliefs about success, opportunity, and the American Dream. The best research to date indicates a high probability that technology will replace 47 percent of US jobs or displace as many as eighty million US workers within the next ten to twenty years.

The American Dream

In the Smart Machine Age or SMA—operational excellence may well become almost totally technology-driven, making human innovation the key to value creation. Organizations will need their people to be hyper-learners who can adapt to rapidly changing environments. These needs are unlike what was required in the command-and-control style organizations of the Industrial Age. Agility, adaptability, and responsiveness also will be required for most, and thus organizational efficiency will be necessary but no longer sufficient.

The Smart Machine Age: A New Game Requires New Rules

NewSmart is a measure not of what you know or how much you know but of <ul><li>- the quality of your thinking, listening, collaborating, and learning. </li><li>- how good you are at “not knowing” and decoupling your beliefs (not values) from your ego. </li><li>- how good you are at being open to continually stress-testing your belief about how the world works. </li><li>- how good you are at trying out new ideas and ways to accomplish your objectives and learning from those experiments.</li></ul>

A New Kind Of Smart

Humility is rarely associated with intellectual aptitude or professional success in Western societies, especially in the United States. Synonyms for Humility often include lowliness, meekness, and submissiveness—characteristics that would seem to be the antithesis of achievement and success. Our definition of Humility comes from our study of it as a philosophical, intellectual virtue and psychological construct. We define Humility as a mindset about oneself that is open-minded, and selfless.This enables one to embrace the world as it “is” in the pursuit of human excellence.

Humility: The Gateway to Human Excellence 

That doesn’t mean thinking less of yourself, but it does mean thinking about yourself less (e.g., how you look, what other people are thinking or saying about you; how you’re coming across; how you’re being judged). It implies the lack of intellectual pretentiousness, boastfulness, or conceit, combined with insight into the logical foundations, or lack of such foundations, of one’s beliefs.

The Meaning Of Humility

The outward focus that follows from a Humility mindset is what’s in our best interest. Truly effective teamwork, collaboration, and innovation can’t happen when we’re defensive or when we’re too tied up in looking or feeling superior to our colleagues, teammates, clients, or customers.Humility is the gateway to human excellence in the SMA. It’s necessary in order to excel at the foundational NewSmart Behaviors which underlie the highest levels of thinking, learning, and emotionally engaging with others.

Focussing Outwards

You must slow down and make daily, thoughtful choices and exert effort to engage in the behaviours that will allow you to develop the skills you’ll need to survive and thrive.Quieting Ego is how we can deliberately work to reduce our reflexive emotional defensiveness; have empathy and open-mindedness; engage in reflexive Listening, and proactively seek other people’s feedback and perspectives to stress-test our own thinking.

Good intentions and Quieting The Ego

The most effective way to quiet our ego is through practising mindfulness. Quieting Ego through mindfulness results in heightened attention and awareness to experience and reality—in the present moment—that is open and receptive without bias or distortion. Meditation is one way to improve mindfulness, to quiet our egos, and to behave with humility. Another way to practice Quieting Ego is through gratitude. Studies of gratitude have discovered wide-ranging physical and psychological benefits associated with it.

Practising Mindfulness

A fundamental component of managing ourselves is the simplest to understand but not always the simplest to do: Slowing down. This seems counterintuitive to the cultural pressures in this day and age of doing more and more, faster and faster, with fewer and fewer resources. What we are talking about, again, is being mindful; slowing down to pay adequate attention and curbing our reflexive cognitive and emotional ways.

Managing Self: Thinking and Emotions

Managing our emotions and behavioural reactivity is also important to managing ourselves, and so is our ability to understand and react appropriately to other people’s emotions—which together constitute emotional intelligence (EI). This is so very important because so much of the value-added work humans will do in the SMA will be done in small teams. Sensitivity to other people’s emotions has been found to be a key to effective collaboration.

Managing Yourself

It’s hard for any of us to critique our own thinking and truly think critically. We’re just too wired to confirm what we already believe, and we feel too comfortable having a cohesive simple story of how our world works. We need to have thinking “partners” who force us to confront those biases, and we need to listen to them. The most effective way to think innovatively is to think with others in small teams made up of people who have experiences and training different from us.You need to listen to others to open your mind and push past your biases and mental models.

Reflective Listening

Listening is the way most of us learn. To be a good listener you have to be totally focused on the speaker with an open mind. You have to listen in a non-judgmental way, with the only goal being to try to understand what the other person is saying before you prepare and deliver your response. Good listeners ask questions to make sure that they understand before responding, or they paraphrase and repeat back what they believe that the person said and ask if they’ve understood correctly.

Listen To Learn

Accepting NewSmart and Humility as well as practising Quieting Ego, Managing Self, and Reflective Listening lays the groundwork for relationship building with others. What else can you do to help yourself better focus on and connect with other people? Here are five keys to connecting with others: (1) be present, (2) be genuine, (3) communicate affirmation, (4) listen effectively, and (5) communicate support. Trust doesn’t just happen—it takes hard work, and it requires slowing down and taking time to be genuine with and care about other people.

Otherness: Emotionally Connecting and Relating to Others

Old Cultural Ways:Individual wins, Play cards close to the chest, Highest ranking person wins, Listen to confirm, Telling, Knowing, IQ, Mistakes are bad, Competing, Self-promote. New Cultural Ways:Teams win, Transparency, the Best idea wins, Listening to learn, Asking questions, Being good at not knowing, IQ & EQ, Mistakes are learning opportunities, Collaborate, Self-reflect.

The NewSmart Organization

To manage and lead a team, you need to meditate so that you dissolve your ego. Buddhism for the corporate world.

Humility Is the New Smart Your job is at risk—if not now, then soon. We are on the leading edge of a Smart Machine Age led by artificial intelligence that will be as transformative for us as the Industrial Revolution was for our ancestors. Smart machines will take over millions of jobs in manufacturing, office work, the service sector, the professions, you name it. Not only can they know more data and analyze it faster than any mere human, say Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig, but smart machines are free of the emotional, psychological, and cultural baggage that so often mars human thinking. So we can't beat 'em and we can't join 'em. To stay relevant, we have to play a different game. Hess and Ludwig offer us that game plan. We need to excel at critical, creative, and innovative thinking and at genuinely engaging with others—things machines can't do well. The key is to change our definition of what it means to be smart. Hess and Ludwig call it being NewSmart. In this extraordinarily timely book, they offer detailed guidance for developing NewSmart attitudes and four critical behaviors that will help us adapt to the new reality. The crucial mindset underlying NewSmart is humility—not self-effacement but an accurate self-appraisal: acknowledging you can't have all the answers, remaining open to new ideas, and committing yourself to lifelong learning. Drawing on extensive multidisciplinary research, Hess and Ludwig emphasize that the key to success in this new era is not to be more like the machines but to excel at the best of what makes us human.

Understand yourself and those around you.

psychology

Psychology

business

Business

Smart machines are replacing more and more jobs. Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig show how to develop abilities that machines don't have so we can thrive in this Smart Machine Age. Underlying them all is a sense of personal humility: honestly recognizing our limitations and working to mitigate them. In nearly every industry, smart machines are replacing human labor. It's not just factory jobs-automated technologies are handling people's investments, diagnosing illnesses, and analyzing written documents. If we humans are going to endure, Edward Hess and Katherine Ludwig say we're going to need a dose of humility. We need to be humble enough to let go of the idea that smart means knowing the most, using that information quickest, and making the fewest mistakes. Smart machines will always be better than we are at those things. Instead, we need to cultivate important abilities that smart machines don't have (yet): thinking critically, creatively, and innovatively and building close relationships with others so we can collaborate effectively. Hess and Ludwig call this being NewSmart. To develop these abilities, we need to practice four specific behaviors: keeping our egos out of our way, managing our thoughts and emotions to curb any biases or defensiveness, listening to others with an open mind, and connecting with others socially and emotionally. What all these behaviors have in common is, again, humility-avoiding self-centeredness so we can learn from and work with other humans. Hess and Ludwig offer a guide to developing these NewSmart abilities and to creating organizations where these qualities are encouraged and rewarded.

Edward D. Hess

Katherine Ludwig

Humility Is the New Smart

Even if you usually excel at finding solutions, there will be times when it seems that there’s no obvious answer to a problem. It could be that you’re facing a unique challenge that you’ve never needed to overcome before. You could feel overwhelmed because of a new context in which everything seems to be foreign, or you may feel like you’re lacking the skills or tools to navigate the situation. When facing a difficult dilemma, Creative Problem Solving offers a structured method to help you find an innovative and effective solution.

Solving Problems

The Creative Problem Solving process, sometimes referred to as CPS, is a proven way to approach a challenge more imaginatively. By redefining problems or opportunities, it becomes possible to move in a completely new and more innovative direction.From its invention by two creative theorists to its application at all levels of creative thinking — from personal to organisation creativity — Creative Problem Solving is an enduring method to generate innovative solutions to complex challenges.

Creative Problem Solving(CPS)

The first principle is to look at problems and reframe them into questions. While problem statements tend to not generate many responses, open questions can lead to a wealth of insights, perspectives, and helpful information — which in turn make it easier to feel inspired and to come up with potential solutions. Instead of saying “this is the problem”, ask yourself: “Why are we facing this problem? What’s currently preventing us from solving this problem? What could be some potential solutions?”

The Four Principles: Reframing The Problem Into Questions

The second principle is to balance divergent and convergent thinking. During <a href="https://nesslabs.com/divergent-thinking">divergent thinking</a>, all options are entertained. Throw all ideas into the ring, regardless of how far-fetched they might be. This is sometimes <a href="https://www.basadur.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2014-Creative-Problem-Solving-Stylescognitive-work-demands-and-organizational-adaptability-JABS.pdf">referred</a> to as non-judgmental, non-rational divergent thinking. It’s based on the willingness to consider all new ideas. Convergent thinking, in contrast, is the thinking mode used to narrow down all of the possible ideas into a sensible shortlist. Finding a midpoint creates a steady state of creativity in which new ideas can be assessed and appraised.

The Four Principles: Divergent And Convergent Thinking

Tangential to the second principle, the third principle for creative problem solving is to defer judgement. By judging solutions too early, you will risk shutting down idea generation. Take your time during the divergent thinking phase to give your mind the freedom to dream ambitious ideas. Only when engaged in convergent thinking should you start judging the ideas you generated in terms of potential, appropriateness, and feasibility.

The Four Principles: Defer Judgement

Creative Problem Solving requires you to say “yes, and” rather than “no, but” in order to encourage generative discussions. You will only stifle your creativity by automatically saying no to ideas that seem illogical or unfeasible. Using positive language allows you to explore possibilities, leaving space for the seeds of ideas to grow into applicable solutions.

The Four Principles: Say Yes

The first step is to understand what the problem is. By turning the problem into a set of questions, you can explore the issue properly and fully grasp the situation, obstacles, and opportunities. This is also the time to gather facts and the opinions of others, if relevant to the problem at hand.

Four Steps To Practise CPS: 1. Formulate Questions

The second step is when you can express your creativity through divergent thinking. Brainstorm new, wild and off-the-wall ideas to generate new concepts that could be the key to solving your dilemma. This can be done on your own, or as part of a <a href="https://nesslabs.com/brainstorming">brainstorming session</a> with your team.

2. Conceptualizing And Exploring Ideas

Now is the time to switch to convergent thinking. Reflect on the ideas you came up with in step two to decide which ones could be successful. As part of optimising, you will need to decide which options might best fit your needs and logistical constraints, how you can make your concepts stronger, and finally decide which idea to move forwards with.

3. Optimize And Develop Solutions

Figuring out how you’ll turn the selected idea into reality is the final step after deciding which of your ideas offers the best solution. Identify what you’ll need to get started, and, if appropriate, let others know of your plans. Communication is particularly important for innovative ideas that require buy-in from others, especially if you think you might initially be met with resistance. You may also need to consider whether you’ll need additional resources to ensure the success of complex solutions, and request the required support in good time.

4. Formulating A Plan And Implementation

Creative Problem Solving is a great way to generate unique ideas when there appears to be no obvious solution to a problem. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by a seemingly impossible challenge, this structured approach will help you generate solutions that you might otherwise not have considered. By practising Creative Problem Solving, some of the most improbable ideas could lead to the discovery of the perfect solution.

The Bottom Line

Learn Creative Problem Solving in 5 minutes.

When facing a difficult dilemma, Creative Problem Solving offers a structured method to help you find an innovative and effective solution.

Creative Problem Solving: from complex challenge to innovative solution

"Dreams Can Become Reality!"

“There’s Nothing Crueler Than Letting A Dream End Midway.”

"Remember Why You Started Down This Path, And Let That Memory Carry You Beyond Your Limit.”

"A goal with no plan is called a delusion. You need a plan in order to achieve your goal."

"To you, my life looks pathetic, meaningless. I wandered around, searching for myself. And I found myself, blessed with friends better than I could ever be. Could a guy ask for a better life?"

"Nothing is more dangerous than a wounded hero!"

It’s off to summer camp for Midoriya and the U.A. students! But this is no ordinary vacation—it’s high-impact training where the students are expected to develop their Quirks even further! The teachers have set up some tough challenges, but none will be as difficult and as life changing as the threat a new group of enemies poses. What’s even worse is who the villains’ target is and why... -- VIZ Media

movies

Movies & Shows

anime

Anime

It’s off to summer camp for Midoriya and the U.A. students! But this is no ordinary vacation—it’s high-impact training where the students are expected to develop their Quirks even further! The teachers have set up some tough challenges, but none will be as difficult and as life changing as the threat a new group of enemies poses. What’s even worse is who the villains’ target is and why... -- VIZ Media

Kohei Horikoshi

My Hero Academia, Vol. 9

Creativity isn't a rare magical spark. Even those without natural talent can learn it. It's important in any industry, not just art and design. Creativity takes time and effort but pays off. Austin Kleon (author of several books) shows how to be creative by borrowing ideas. This book is for anyone, artist or not.

Steal Like an Artist by Austin Kleon [A Book Summary]

This book emphasises that you don't need to be a genius or expert to be creative and that creativity isn't just making something new. Picasso stole other artists' work, and Steve Jobs copied Sony's Walkman to create the iPod.He says you have plenty of good ideas, but you need to find them. Once found, make minor changes to existing ones, he says.

You don't need to be a genius to have good ideas.

Originality is overrated. Every great artist and writer has been influenced by others. Which takes longer: creating an original idea or building on existing ones?Never be afraid to be inspired by others' work. You can only copy those who encourage you. Instead of "stealing" their ideas, use them to inspire your own. Great art starts with someone else doing something extraordinary, then adding something new through practice and experimentation to give it its voice (your voice!).

You can't be unique, always. So, Personalize your work.

Creativity is silly. Artists must remember that creativity is play. It's not a serious business. Artists should be creative and enjoy themselves. You should approach every project with the mindset of having fun and enjoying yourself. If something isn't working out or your audience isn't responding, don't get discouraged. Keep trying new things until you find something that works.

Creative work is play.

Don't wait until you know yourself to start being successful. Without action and new experiences, you won't know your purpose. You don't need a plan to create art, but you must begin.Austin Kleon says, "Waiting for inspiration is like waiting for raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens." Instead of waiting for everything to be perfect before starting important work, just do it.

Start before you know yourself.

Stop waiting for others to create what you want to do yourself. Write a book you'd enjoy. Make your own movie. Make a song that moves you or play an online game until it becomes part of your life (and then share it with others). Humans are prone to complacency and habituation. Still, let's be open-minded about our interests and self-explore. In that case, we can see how unique art can be when created by people who care about making something remarkable, like an app or painting.

Write a book you'd enjoy. (Or make a movie, song, etc.)

The second part is more important. To create something meaningful, you must share it. Sharing doesn't just mean posting on your blog or Twitter feed; it means listening to feedback and making changes, finding your voice by learning from others and finding the right audience for your work (or somewhere in between).Our creations live in a world full of other creators, who can influence us in many ways.

The secret: Do good work and share it with people.

We work, learn, live, and communicate differently because of the Internet. We're rethinking. Digital culture and technological progress have boosted creativity.

Geography is no longer our master.

Being nice can help you get ahead in life. People fail because they're not friendly, not because they're not talented or smart. Being kind will help you make a name for yourself as an artist much faster than being a jerk.Kindness has many benefits:Being nice helps you make friends with other artists and creators who will promote your work because they like working with good people (and don't want their idea stolen).Being nice helps coworkers, friends, and family.

Be nice (The world is a small town.)

Every artist knows that creativity is removing the unnecessary and that great art comes from the ability to make judgments. It’s essential to discern what is good and what isn’t, what works and what doesn’t — and then throw out everything in between. This process is called editing (or “subtraction,” as Austin Kleon puts it). It can be challenging, but if you take a moment to think about it, it’s fun too!

Creativity is subtraction.

In the end, you want to take a look at your work and ask yourself: “Is this original?” If you have only copied another artist, it’s not original. But if you’ve taken ideas and added your spin to them, then it is.

Steal ideas from others, but only if you add your spin to them!

Steal Like An Artist by Austin Kleon is a book that speaks about creativity and art. It's a must-read for every artist, writer or person involved with or passionate about the creative process.

Creativity isn’t some magical spark that only a few chosen people have. It’s a skill anyone can learn, even if they have no natural talent. And it’s crucial to success in any industry — not just art…

Find 100+ Facts about Creativity - Curated by others from trusted sources like Books, Podcasts & Articles - Genuine Insights from like-minded Users like You!