CREATIVE
PEOPLE, THOUGH THEY MAY BE DISSIMILAR IN MANY RESPECTS,
SHARE AT THEIR CORE THREE FOUNDING CHARACTERISTICS NOT
PRESENT IN PEOPLE OF AVERAGE ACHIEVEMENT.
REACH FOR IDEAS
The
creative person realizes that his mind is an inexhaustible
storehouse. It can provide anything he earnestly wants in
life. But in order to draw from this storehouse, he must
constantly augment its stock of information, thoughts, and
wisdom. He reaches out for ideas. He respects the mind of
others — gives
credit to their mental abilities. Everyone has ideas —
they're free — and many of them are excellent. By first
listening to ideas and then thinking them through before
judging them, the creative person avoids prejudice and
close-mindedness. This is the way he maintains a creative
"climate" around himself.
Ideas are
like slippery fish. They seem to have a peculiar knack of
getting away from us. Because of this, the creative person
always has a pad and a pencil handy. When he gets an idea,
he writes it down. He knows that many people have found
their whole lives changed by a single great thought. By
capturing ideas immediately, he doesn't risk forgetting
them. [Note: a great way to save ideas easily is to
Text- Message them from your cell phone to your main email
account. You are rarely without your cell phone, and this
allows you to record your idea for later review and action.]
Having a
sincere interest in people, our creative person listens
carefully when someone else is talking. He's intensely
observant, absorbing everything he sees and hears. He
behaves as if everyone he meets wears a sign that reads, "My
ideas and interest may offer the hidden key to your next
success." Thus, he makes it a point always to talk with
other people's interest in mind. And it pays off in a flood
of new ideas and information that would otherwise be lost to
him forever.
Widening
his circle of friends and broadening his base of knowledge
are two more very effective techniques of the creative
person.
ANTICIPATE ACHIEVEMENT
The
creative person anticipates achievement. She expects to win.
And the above-average production engendered by this kind of
attitude affects those around her in a positive way. She's a
plus-factor for all who know her.
Problems
are challenges to creative minds. Without problems, there
would be little reason to think at all. She knows it's a
waste of time merely to worry about problems, so she wisely
invests the same time and energy in solving problems.
When the
creative person gets an idea, she puts it through a series
of steps designed to improve it. She thinks in new
directions. She builds big ideas from little ones and new
ideas from old ones: associating ideas, combining them,
adapting, substituting, magnifying, minifying, rearranging
and reversing ideas.
BE CREATIVE FOR YOURSELF
Creative
and productive people are not creative and productive for
the benefit of others. It's because they're driven by the
need to be creative and productive. They'd be creative and
productive if they lived on a deserted island with no one
benefiting or even aware of what they were doing. They
experience the joy of producing something. That others
benefit from it is fine, but only secondary.
This is a
story of the painters who were before their time. Renoir was
laughed at and rejected not only by the public but by his
own fellow artists, yet he went right on painting. Even
Manet said to Monet, "Renoir has no talent at all. You who
are his friend should tell him kindly to give up painting."
A group of
artists who were rejected by the establishment of their time
formed their own association in self-defense. Do you know
who was in that group? They were Degas, Pissaro, Monet,
Cezanne, and Renoir. Five of the greatest artists of all
time, all doing what they believed in, in the face of total
rejection.
Renoir, in
his later life, suffered terribly from rheumatism,
especially in his hands. He lived in constant pain. And when
Matisse visited the aging painter, he saw that every stroke
was causing renewed pain, and he asked, "Why do you still
have to work? Why continue to torture yourself?" And then
Renoir answered, "The pain passes, but the pleasure, the
creation of beauty, remains." One day when he was 78,
finally quite famous and successful, he remarked, "I'm still
making progress." The next day he died.
This is the mark of the creative person ...
still making progress, still learning, still producing as
long as he or she lives, despite pain or problems of all
kinds. Not producing for the joy or satisfaction of others,
but because he must. Because it brings pleasure and
satisfaction.
