Skill Of The Creative

by David

The simple paperclip can be a doorway to a creative moment

The ultimate skill of the truly creative person is their ability to survive change no matter how varied it may be.

Acquiring and then expertly utilizing already structured knowledge is the attribute of the very learned.

The creative person is uniquely interested in newness.

That, coupled with a passion for what they do, fires a gut-drive infused with persistence that sustains a vision that never changes.

It’s different than a dream.

It makes the timeline from start to finish, even if it’s very long (and it often is), seem more bearable.

Even when it looks like failure is following failure yet again this drive wins out because it won’t let them give up easily.

Another word for a creative person like that is “entrepreneur”.

In the 1920’s, and for many years after, Napoleon Hill interviewed one hundred and twenty-five of the most financially successful men of his day.

Know what he discovered? The top two attributes for their success was their persistence and determination. Not intelligence or connections. Too bad Hill himself never nailed down exactly what the nature of persistence and determination was and how to get more of it into your life. He instead got wrapped up in laws and lists of principals. More head brain work for you to do.

All that is a far cry from finally finding out what exactly it is that allows some to survive long periods of discomfort and to maintain a motivation through it all. For creatives who want to ‘make it’ on their own terms it’s as essential as air.

More power to you.

Quotius #7

by David

Each week I intend to dispatch my pent-up creativity by creating a new version of something I call a “quotius”. (Learn about the genesis of it here.)

“It’s always the right time … If you time it right.” – Mobiusman

Back in the day the pop rock group the Rolling Stones recorded a song titled “Time Is On My Side”. Its message underscored the fact that time as a measurement lies at the very foundation of our life’s experience on this big ball of mud we call planet Earth.

Every day we use time as a scale of comparison between the good times and the not-so-good times. Myself, as I get older, arrive at a place where the unknown quantity of the time that I have left spikes dramatically in its perceived value. This is one reason why it troubles me greatly to learn that a growing number of individuals, many of them young people, somehow see that time’s value for themselves is almost worthless and thus take the drastic terrifyingly final and irreversible step to short it out completely.

The power of time’s value is expressed in other ways too. Doctors, for example, try to give their patients more time while our penal system takes away a prisoner’s freedom and uses time as punishment for crimes they’ve committed.

But for most of us these days we feel time racing by never to be reclaimed. “There isn’t enough time in a day” the busy person says. “Why is this taking so long? asks another as she waits for her computer to download a file.

In business school we’re told that cash-flow is king. But that monarchy pales in the presence of the exalted dominion that time has on our hearts and minds.

It all boils down to this: If you have something of value to contribute to the world then do it now.

The timing is just right.

More power to you.

PS: Have you noticed that a lot of personal development methods no longer pack the punch they once did? Could be the times. I went ahead and invented this simple little brain tweak that makes a huge difference in leveraging your efforts for creating a better version of yourself. Want more? Check out my FREE webinar here.

The Annual New England Xylophone Symposium by DoKashiteru is licensed under a Attribution (3.0).

Head-brain On Overfill

by David

Mobius Monday Minute – June 13 , 2011

I was reading one of my favorite blogs the other day and Coleen, the blog’s author, had linked to a fine article on the problem of information oversupply.

Instantly some bells rang for me so I’m here writing about it. As I was typing this I was beginning to realize something about what I’m doing right now. I’m adding to the incredible bulk that our age has become known for: The out-of-control growth of the humongous information pile.

That article came to the sad conclusion of what we must now be prepared for. I can tell you, it doesn’t look good.

It turns out that – for me at least – hoping to be considered as “well read” by any known standard is now virtually unattainable. There is just too much to read, watch, listen to, taste, and touch in the world today. More boldly it seems, that to try to fit the requirements for being well read into our pathetically short little lives is just an impossible task for anyone. But thankfully we have two choices of responses to choose from: “culling or surrender”.

The former is for the focused and the latter for the time-maxed.

Personally, I love reading especially since the day my wife and I gave up the idiot box a few years ago. But now I’ve become more mindful that not only am I not going to get to see or hear it all, I’m going to miss almost all of it by default. Lac of time, added by my current snail’s pace of reading and comprehension, will see to that. And, even if by some chance miracle it didn’t, the rate of info overfill would continue on so relentlessly that I’d fall way behind it anyway.

Like looking at a car accident as you pass by it on the highway, it’s absurdly fascinating to see the scale and scope of this world-wide info head-brain overfill. It’s starkly summed up by the article’s author as she looks at the numbers: “Statistically speaking, you will die having missed almost everything.”

Ugh!

As an artist that statement alone is enough to give me visuals. At least it would have if she hadn’t beaten me to it. Her clever use of her literary skill allowed her to end the essay with the imagery that information today is like an ocean and all we are going to be able to get out of it is a paltry little cupful.

That’s another good reason why I recommend making a simple little tweak in your system of thinking. It’s a “brain tweak” that allows for a fundamental change in your focus. It’s now possible to go from information – that’s not only coming to you – but information that’s now coming through you. It’s something I talk about in my free Mobius Effect Webinars and you can learn more about it here

Trust me. All is not lost.

More power to you.

PS: Would you like to learn about a new way to discover what you are really meant to do? What is true and natural for you instead of taking direction from others? Check out my free Mobius Effect Webinar.

Photo: Copyright by stephamelon on Flickr

End Of Rope

by David

Your rope has a knot in it — Tying a knot when you’re at the end of it might be key to hanging on

“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” -Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Quotivation Day #3 November 26, 2010

Today’s quotivation is from Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882 – April 12, 1945 also known by his initials, FDR) was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war

His message re-iterates the long standing dictum that all motivators promote: Don’t you quit!

The one thing that get’s people to a place where they make the decision to give up is, not really so much about how tough it is, but the length of time that must be endured between the starting point and the successful finish point.

The sad truth is none of us like unending pain. We’ll do anything to avoid it. In fact, one thing that researchers know about humans is that we are not all that rational when it comes to what discomforts us. We actually hate to lose more than we like to gain and that is a factor that kills a lot of new entrepreneurs from continuing to pursue their dream of financial and time independence as well as personal autonomy.

Of course the entire personal development industry is dedicated to correcting this problem. But they are just about out of rope themselves. That’s because over the last 100 years the message “don’t you give up” has been so over-repeated that it’s lost most of its ardor.

As usual the old 80/20 rule applies. Only 20 percent can ever get to the point where they overcome enough to actually call it a real success the other 80 percent are left hanging.

But I like working with the end-of-the-ropers. For one thing they have usually come to the point where they have rejected a lot of the extraneous BS that is so common in the personal development industry.

All I have to do then is deliver real truth for a change. Not some wordy truth but a gut-based strength type truth that they can both feel and see as well. A truth that’s tied firmly to the one single enduring attribute that guarantees that we finish what we start every time: PERSISTENCE.

So… if you’re nearing the end of your rope here’s how you can tie a big knot in it and find the key to surviving over time.

More power to you my friend.

Getting ready

by David

You know how to never get things done? Spend time getting ready for them.

Sounds deeply intuitive but it’s just plain old common sense. The beginning of a thing can be a real trap if you work on it too long. You lose momentum. The juices slow down then stop flowing and the temptation to jump to something else becomes too strong to fight. So you find yourself flipping from one thing to another. It’s murder on the mindset.

My problem is I have a perfectionist tendency. If it’s in the genes I probably got it from my father. He was an osteopath. As a trained doctor who was treating up to 30 patients a day making sure you are right before you snap someone’s neck back into alignment was probably a good plan.

But I’m in the creative end of things so it’s not a good fit here. I need to move fast and loose. Come up with good ideas and sometimes crappy ones too. It’s just a thinking stew pot so stir it.

Who cares? Keep moving.

When I’m not moving quickly I get tired. So tired I feel like I could sleep standing up. Then I just want to go in and have a nice snooze.

But in doing that I’ve wasted a lot of time over the years. It’s only occasionally useful if I wake up quickly with a start because I have an idea rumbling in my gut begging to reach my brain. It needs me to start to work writing about it. So that’s what I’m going to do.

From now on I’ll be adopting this as my modis operundi on this blog.

Every day for the next month.

I’ve now realized that every day and every night form a kind of template that look a lot like a mobius. They magically turn into the next day and there’s no obvious seam between them.

There’s no start point and there’s certainly no end point.

So what am I getting so ready for?