Creativity for Leaders who Create the Future
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How do you go about redirecting, reinventing, and rebuilding after life's crossroads give you a detour?
Hi! Sheila here. Welcome to webdzine, cyberconcierge on the WWW since 1995.
Have you noticed that creativity gets a bad rap? Short shrift? Say 'creative economy' and the image people share is the starving artist and the guitar player on the street corner catching quarters in a hat.
My family was brass tacks about it. "You don't need creativity. You need a job." So in my first job, I designed endcaps at Sears even though my job was behind the cash register.
Fast forward, crying on my Mom's blue couch looking out at Shell Creek, the dead end of my creativity weighed me down. Mom had just passed away despite my best care. I'd already left behind everything in California.
After that terrible crossroads, who had I become? What was my purpose?
The phone rang. Thank good orderly direction, it was my old friend JR. Responding to my existential dilemma, she told me about The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron's course in discovering and recovering your creative self.
Hoping to rebuild, I dove into Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety. Week by week, morning pages and artist dates revealed my new surroundings and my blank canvas.
That tragic crossroads became an opportunity to reinvent my purpose and direction, coming to grips with all that had happened. Change changes you, and so does stress. My purpose became clear: create or be consumed. Facilitate creativity and collective creative process so we can create our best future. The Artist's Way was my first framework for sensing into the unknown: the first step of the creative process. I'm sharing it with you because it's a self-starter's way to answer the question: "what's most important to you right now?" Why creativity matters.
Working on a future self or vision, feelings of unproductivity can become unbearable. Self-talk chimes in asking "why are you wasting time when you have real work to do?" Your to-do list can feel a lot easier because, well, you know what to do. What will you forfeit, though, when you ignore creating your future? The creative process is our most powerful human superpower. Creativity is the key to resilience. It is the opposite of reactivity.
What creativity really is.
Creativity is inner wisdom with the ability to discover new and original ideas, connections, and solutions to problems.
Creativity is the interplay between all of the senses that connects us to source.
Creativity is consciousness. It's also follow through, not just bright ideas and brainstorming.
What creativity is not.
Consider the assembly line. Ford's new and innovative solution in 1913 was designed to improve standard results. Doing the same thing over and over is a choice. There is power in habit. Silo'd tasks and functions are the risk: loss of connection and shared purpose.
Creative work is intentional.
Where creativity works
Creativity provides opportunities for self-actualization so you can find your highest purpose and your spark.
Creative processes are frameworks for innovative solutions to problems and competitive responses to opportunities.
Leading from the Emerging Future, we need to connect to source.
The creative process is as important for groups, teams, communities, states, and countries as it is for you and me.
What can your creativity do for you? What can creativity do for you and your team?
Join the conversation. Subscribe to Coffee Talk: the latest strategies and tools delivered straight to your inbox Friday morning at 8am. Exclusively created for leaders of self, teams, and change so we can create our future.
My family was brass tacks about it. "You don't need creativity. You need a job." So in my first job, I designed endcaps at Sears even though my job was behind the cash register.
Fast forward, crying on my Mom's blue couch looking out at Shell Creek, the dead end of my creativity weighed me down. Mom had just passed away despite my best care. I'd already left behind everything in California.
After that terrible crossroads, who had I become? What was my purpose?
The phone rang. Thank good orderly direction, it was my old friend JR. Responding to my existential dilemma, she told me about The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron's course in discovering and recovering your creative self.
Hoping to rebuild, I dove into Week 1: Recovering a Sense of Safety. Week by week, morning pages and artist dates revealed my new surroundings and my blank canvas.
That tragic crossroads became an opportunity to reinvent my purpose and direction, coming to grips with all that had happened. Change changes you, and so does stress. My purpose became clear: create or be consumed. Facilitate creativity and collective creative process so we can create our best future. The Artist's Way was my first framework for sensing into the unknown: the first step of the creative process. I'm sharing it with you because it's a self-starter's way to answer the question: "what's most important to you right now?" Why creativity matters.
Working on a future self or vision, feelings of unproductivity can become unbearable. Self-talk chimes in asking "why are you wasting time when you have real work to do?" Your to-do list can feel a lot easier because, well, you know what to do. What will you forfeit, though, when you ignore creating your future? The creative process is our most powerful human superpower. Creativity is the key to resilience. It is the opposite of reactivity.
What creativity really is.
Creativity is inner wisdom with the ability to discover new and original ideas, connections, and solutions to problems.
Creativity is the interplay between all of the senses that connects us to source.
Creativity is consciousness. It's also follow through, not just bright ideas and brainstorming.
What creativity is not.
Consider the assembly line. Ford's new and innovative solution in 1913 was designed to improve standard results. Doing the same thing over and over is a choice. There is power in habit. Silo'd tasks and functions are the risk: loss of connection and shared purpose.
Creative work is intentional.
Where creativity works
Creativity provides opportunities for self-actualization so you can find your highest purpose and your spark.
Creative processes are frameworks for innovative solutions to problems and competitive responses to opportunities.
Leading from the Emerging Future, we need to connect to source.
The creative process is as important for groups, teams, communities, states, and countries as it is for you and me.
What can your creativity do for you? What can creativity do for you and your team?
Join the conversation. Subscribe to Coffee Talk: the latest strategies and tools delivered straight to your inbox Friday morning at 8am. Exclusively created for leaders of self, teams, and change so we can create our future.
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