What Creativity Is And How To Be Creative What is creativity? Maybe it is a mysterious or only those select few may have it. Whether some or born with it or not, I believe creativity can be practiced. Or you could be like me. I never thought of myself as creative until I started posting all my material and getting comments on how creative I am. Maybe you are creative and you just don’t know it. How can being creative help us and in what areas? The Obvious answer is in the arts but creativity could also help a business by implementing creative solutions to problems. One of my favorite shows is the shark tank. It is a TV show where everyday people pitch their ideas for a business or product to extremely rich investors, called the sharks. They are called sharks because of how harsh they can be on bad ideas. I watched the show to find out why some ideas catch fire and others don’t. To my surprise one of the hottest items that got all the sharks chomping at the bit to invest in was a broom. It was not some state of the art electronic that utilizes complex engineering. It was simply made of wood and plastic but with an attachment. The creator of this broom is an everyday mom and caretaker. She simply saw a problem that every time she swept she had to take an extra step to grab the dust pan. The broom solves this problem by having the dust pan attached to the broom and lowered by pressing a button. It’s such a simple idea and solution to a problem you and I rarely would think about, yet it’s probably experienced by the masses. And masses mean big money for the sharks. Part of being creative is being crazy. That’s right. Be a little crazy. You must operate outside of social norms. Miyamoto Musashi, the greatest samurai who ever lived, was repugnant. He didn’t shower much and didn’t live in society as a nomad. He innovated psychological warfare and a two sword system. Part of being creative is being the first, a pioneer, to create an idea from no previous thought. Or to take a previous thought and innovated within it. One of the first “inventions” of Steve Jobs that caught fire was the ipod. If you think about it, there has been mp3 players created before the ipod. Then what makes the ipod so special? He simply added the user-friendly buttons of a VCR/DVD player and put it on an mp3 player. He was the first to think of this idea and what wasn’t normal before became the social norm. Copernicus was the first to say that the Sun was the center and not the Earth. He was lynched because it was against the religion at the time. Luckily in our society, people have become more open minded to differing beliefs. A feeling of danger or risk is a good sign while allowing your creative juices to flow. You should have a feeling that you might be judged because what you do is outside of the social norm. People are used to the norm and resistant to change. However, with risk comes great reward. Ideas are hit or miss. You just have to keep at it. Now I’m going to talk about being creative in conversation. Being creative in conversation, can light up a date or generate more fun with friends. First practice with recycled jokes or lines. I give you some examples. While bickering with a very close friend, as the conversation continues, say, “You want to know what?” Then keep repeating it, “You want to know what? You want to know what?” Pretend to be slighty mad or annoyed. When they respond, “what” don’t respond. Keep repeating, “Want to know what?” Wait for them to respond opposingly and annoyed, “what what what what?” Then what you are going to do is turn to them in an exaggerated way. Exaggerate your body language like this. Let’s say he or she is sitting next to you. Go like this. “Chicken But! DAAAAAA.” That should get some laughs. One time I was flirting with a girl I liked. She was a coach in one of my leadership training seminars. She hosted a meeting for us to do our assignments. I wanted a hug from her so I told her, “This assignment is so hard, I need a hug.” The assignment wasn’t that hard I just wanted a hug. She says, “Do you really need a hug?” I reply, “Yes I do!” She says, “Come on you can do it.” So I start pretend crying, like this. The thing about pretend crying is that its so obvious that you are fake crying. So you have to cover up your eyes like this. It’s still obvious that you’re pretend crying, but whatever. So I’m crying for a whole half an hour, and every time she gives her encouraging words with no hug, I cry louder. I end up in a full on pretend cry banging on the table. So she ends up setting up a chair and props for me to do my assignment and she finally gives me the hug. I mean I could have simply asked for the hug, but this way I got her cracking up. Once you’ve practiced enough with recycled lines, you should come up with your own material. The examples I just gave I came up with myself and I came up with them on the fly. You have to be snappy and quick, like you are on family feud. Steve Harvey is asking you and your opponent a question and you have to hit the buzzer as soon as possible. That’s it! Thanks for watching.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 04:17:45 +0000
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