Tag Archives: creativity

In The Fog

by on November 22, 2005 in Creative

I guess its a natural part of the creative process to be in the fog every once in a while. Or perhaps its just that I live in a frenetic city, read way too much for my own good, think about things far too deeply, and of course, struggle with some perfectionism tendencies.

Right now, I feel like my head is swimming in ideas. It’s also a bit overloaded with issues from my paying work – though these mainly integrate with my ideas on work and play.

And since I’m blessed to be a part of a great community of readers and fellow bloggers, I have some questions. Feel free to post comments below or trackback a blog post here.

When you read, how do you distill the main points and "aha moments" of different books together? I’m trying to mindmap each book, but I can’t figure out how to integrate the different maps. Maybe one mindmap including all books (though this is going to get unwieldy after several books)?

When you feel overwhelmed by too many thoughts and ideas, how do you deal with getting clarity? Do you relax? Do you have some kind of creative process? Do you do something else entirely?

I’m eagerly anticipating the responses.

Just Wondering

by on April 27, 2005 in Creative, Work

[Note: I've had this in draft form for a couple of days...I figure it's time to just go ahead and share it.]

Is there a more powerful word in the English dictionary than WONDER? I just returned from a long hike through the trails that surround my neighborhood and I found myself walking with a sense of wonder. Wonder is like super-charged curiosity. It’s deeper and more poetic in what it unleashes. 

Just start a sentence with "I wonder about…" and see where it takes you. I started looking at the clouds and finding all different types of formations. Interestingly enough, many of the clouds were looking like insects: a praying mantis, a couple of bees, maybe a large beetle with pointy jaws. Rather than thinking, "That’s weird," I had far more fun asking, "I wonder why?"

The act of wondering isn’t just something you can do while meandering through a forest path or sitting on a beach; it has a beneficial purpose in our workplaces. However, there needs to be a conducive climate for wondering to fully occur. If your workplace is buzzing with speed and franticness, then there’s little fertile ground to start. Wondering is an organizational skill that can be developed when we’re given the chance to slow down and see the bigger patterns. If you’re saying, "But Chris, I can’t slow down, there’s just too much to do and too little time," begin to wonder about the quality of your output. Are you just going from task-to-task? Are you accomplishing what’s really important to you and your work?

If you are in a go-go-go workplace that prides itself on high levels of action, it may take some courage to introduce reflective wondering. To an untrained eye, you might look lazy, uncommitted, and unproductive (three killer words that can be leveled at employees). On the contrary, you might notice that after allowing reflection and wondering into your daily routine, your productivity will actually rise. Have fun!

Being “In The Zone”

by on March 23, 2005 in Creative

Lately, I’ve been in high interview mode. Anyone who has been through an interview knows about the amount of time it takes to properly research and prepare for the meeting. In my case, I had a "performance interview" on Monday, which automatically increases the prep time exponentially. For this performance interview for a corporate trainer position, I had to facilitate a mock technical training in front of five people within the company. It was one of the most fun, relaxed, and personally powerful interviews I’ve ever experienced.

As I was debriefing with my wife afterward, I realized that what made it go so well was that I felt like I was "in the zone." My first time hearing that phrase was in a college class on Taoism and Creativity. We talked about how to enter that place and work there. All I could think was that it seemed very mystical, like an out-of-body experience.

However, I’ve come to different perspective since those college days. Why was I able to achieve that place in the zone? For me, it was about the hard work I’ve done in the past months (and years really) getting to know who I am and in what I’m particularly skilled and talented. You know, Michael Jordan didn’t wake up one day to find he could hit a clutch three point basket. He had to work long and hard at developing the proper technique and mindset. Then, he had to understand that the true power came when he relaxed and trusted his abilities. It’s the same for all of us who find the zone.

There’s plenty of work that has to be done in order to achieve mastery of a subject or action. It’s only after this hard work that the mystical can flow through us. Any experiences with being in the zone you’d like to share?

Ack! Where Are You Dear Muse?

by on March 15, 2005 in Creative, Life

There has been a true lack of blogging activity on my part lately. Perhaps its the weather and the knowledge that spring is so close to being here. I’m ready for the transition to warmth. Unfortunately, it still feels so far away. As I write, my thermometer tells me that it’s 38 degrees F outside my window. Oh how I could use a trip to tropics, but instead, I think my Muse has taken the vacation for me.

I checked in with Curt Rosengren at The Occupational Adventure and his post on Avoiding the Obligation Trap yesterday really resonated with me. For the past couple of weeks, I’ve sat at my computer and heard a voice tell me: "Dude, you seriously need to blog today. C’mon, just look at how few tan hyperlinks there are on the ole blog calendar to the left. Just post some crap. It’s better than nothing." I think that voice belongs to Muse’s brother and general nogoodnik, Humdrum. His chief purpose is to be burdensome and stifle all creativity.

However, there is something within that helps me resist the urge to just post crap (must be Muse placing some long-distance phone calls). Honestly, I care too much about this blog to do that. I really connected with something Curt wrote:

By saying no to that feeling of obligation and just doing what felt
right, I made sure that I would continue to have the interest and
energy to put into this blog. If I started blogging primarily from a
sense of obligation, and not because I wanted to, the blog would have
zero chance of lasting very long.

The best bloggers among us realize that this is a medium for expressing our soul. Hmmm…I think I see my Muse pulling up in the driveway. Maybe she’s bringing some of the tropics along with her.

Developing Chaordic Confidence

by on March 4, 2005 in Creative

Chris Corrigan at Open Space has a fantastic post from a week ago called Values, tools and authentic facilitation. What immediately pulled me into the post was this:

Work as practice. And by practice I mean something akin to a spiritual practice, whereby one undertakes a life of value and meaning through living in a particular way. When I feel my facilitation practice deepening, I notice that what I do is becoming more and more aligned with who I am.

I can think of no more noble way to approach our work than that. It’s about taking pride in our chosen craft and finding ourselves in our profession.

But, then Chris took it deeper and discussed chaordic confidence, the idea that we have the ability to stay in chaos and trust that order will emerge. Scary, terrifying, liberating, and ultimately a source of the greatest creativity we can generate. It seems to be more than what we do and even how we go about doing it; it’s about getting to the why behind what we do. In terms of Chris’s work as a facilitator, he describes it like this:

Developing chaordic confidence is more than acquiring more tools. It is about integrating an approach to life and work that is anchored in a set of principles and values that serves our clients. For me these values include believing in the wisdom of the group, trusting that chaos produces higher levels of order and seeing conflict as passion that can be harnessed in the service of progress.

He offers a couple of powerful points of reflection…Do we know what our principles and values are? Do they anchor our own approach to life as well as work? Are they principles and values that serve others? Brilliant questions to consider over the weekend.