wholistic / connected self

Locking a creative person in a Hardware store is like locking a kid in a Toy shop.

For the innovator, the world is one great big Hardware store.

For creative people, areas of knowledge are just shelves in a supermarket, full of goodies.

An innovator can be categorized as some one who ignores categories.

Categories are the prisons built for established specialists.

Ideas are limited by the silly walls built around fields of knowledge.

Trying new things

The life of a creative person is to attempt new things. Distraction is the avoidance of attempting new things.

If you never create, you'll tell yourself you can't do it. If you do create, you'll still need to remind yourself that it was you.

The real buzz is creating something you haven't done before. You surprise yourself everyday.

Creativity is about doing stuff you haven't done before. You begin by fearing it. Then you begin to love it.

Life is a fluid situation. Sometimes you gotta get your feet wet.

No one is ready to graduate or ready for the job interview, or ready to work for themselves. But they begin.

So many wait impatiently for a limo, when the bus was all they needed.

No one is ever 100% ready to begin. So many put off the work of their dreams forever.

Procrastination is indecision. Indecision is resistance.

People wait for decades until they feel ready. The world also waits.

You need to actively chase projects you want to do. Or you WILL be doing uninteresting work.

Stagnation is making what you know well. Enthusiasm is for what we have only imagined.

Don't need to wait for a job you've already done. Chase the creative career you want.

Obvious enthusiasm is more valuable than career experience.

You're not the sum of you work experience. Aim for your career expectations.

Don't be distracted by what you can do. Focus on what you want to create.

Stagnation, indecisive, procrastination, unmotivated & frustrated: all symptoms of no clear vision for your future career. 

You know you are creating when you say, "I have no idea what I'm doing".

People who know how, didn't know how when they began.

We all imagine a tight-rope between today and our ideal future.

To create is a risk. Not creating is a bigger risk.

10,000 say, "I don't know how", and never start. A rare few say, "I will figure it out" and begin.

Some wait for the perfect time. Some are waiting to be perfect.

We wait until we are ready, willing & able. But we just need to be willing.

People say they aren't creative. What they mean is: "I feel safe in my box".

Many say, "I'm not creative". (Translation: "I got by up till now").

For the past 50 years you could get by without being creative. Not any more.

SUCCESS: It’s not what you do well now, it's what you want to do great.

It's not how creative you are. It's how creative you want to be.

Creativity flows AFTER you start creating.

You won't learn about personal innovation until you take a risk.

Time & priorities

How can anyone hope for a more creative life if they don't even set aside 30 minutes a day to create.

I few minutes writing your thoughts down everyday is a great start to a more creative life.

The first step in a transition to a more creative life is to accept your need to create regularly.

It's about Task Management, not time management. Focus on your strengths.

Remember, People who are good at wasting their time, are good at wasting yours too.

Can't decide how best to use your time? Love knows when to say Yes. Wisdom knows when to say No.

Want to save a lot of time? Give people what they need, not what they want.

We spend our whole life waiting for the perfect time. But life isn't perfect.

Everyone needs a Creative Retreat. But that sounds defeatist. Let's call it a Creative Takeover.

We have no time to create because we have an over inflated sense of duty to go beyond our needs.

Today we have more opportunity to fill up our time, instead of protecting pockets of time to explore opportunities.

Your idea must be more valued than the compulsion to fill ever moment with mildly amusing distractions.

Ever experienced the subtle pressure not to create? "Oh, you're not doing much, can you help me"(?)

When we accept the mental cycle of "Need to work & deserve a rest", we won't allow ourselves time to create.

Great way to be more creative: What can you create that will be finished by sunset?

If people don't value your time, they don't value what you're doing.

Time should be shared, exchanged & given voluntarily. Not expected from you.

Time is valuable. People can expect too much of it from you.

Your life isn't giving your time away. It's devoting you time to what you love.

It's easy to say, "When I've organised everything, then I'll create". That makes your art the lowest priority.

There will always, always be something else to do. But you CAN find 15 minutes to create everyday.

I wonder what’s on the Procrasta-vision?

Maybe I'll aimlessly surf the Procrasta-net?

We wait for the mythical 'When'...but the 'NOW' is your moment.

Tomorrow will be a better day to start... ...Start TODAY will a better tomorrow be.

The greatest gift to yourself is TIME...YOU are one of your priorities.

I've been guilty of over planning & under achieving.

Education is a wonderful thing but it conditions people to learn first, THEN apply it in the real world.

'Beginning' has a wonderful effect; What you thought was too hard & too tiring is often only an illusion.

The best way forward is often a bit to the left or right. Never in the middle or to the extreme.

The world & society

Poverty is being robbed in advance.

A society that nurtures the creative, protects the ideas that society will need in the future.

If people valued seeds (of talent) as much as fruit, there would be more of both.

You have already experienced more changes than someone from 100 years ago.

Most of what you use everyday didn't exist 12 years ago. What you're learning now wasn't here 4 years ago.

Modern society should be measured in dog years. And it needs to learn some new tricks.

Societies that value conformity, tradition & duty, can't value new ideas & self expression.

Every society needs a vision. It should be that the unique visions of many should be encouraged for the benefit of all society.

We all got something to prove. Even if it's to prove the world wrong.

You either re-enforce the assumptions or re-invent as much as you can.

The first rule of Popular Culture is; You must accept all their assumptions.

When 80% agree on anything, I worry for the other 20%.

When someone tells me a picture is crooked. I say it's actually straight, it's the world that's crooked.

A better society is one that shows appreciation for more of it's artists & innovators sooner.

A poor country is where people struggle to survive. A rich country is where people struggle to stay awake.

The world is divided into people who have to be self-reliant, & those who need to be.

A lot of music videos seems to be a very elaborate form of flirting.

Your informed personal opinion is more useful than the sound bites of public opinion.

People have freedom of speech. The Individual has the freedom to think, without minding what people are saying.

It's getting harder to work out what is fact, fiction or formula.

If people labels don't stick on you, they'll try mud instead (but what you ignore will fall off).

The only labels that mean anything are the ones you choose to carry.

The world loves to put labels on people. The job of an Individual is to defy description.

The world puts people in boxes so they don't have to think outside of it.

The world will have more geniuses if people were not over medicated & over mediated.

The best guardians of society are people who don't conform to it.

The world always underestimates it's creative potential.

Our future is already conceived in the minds of the young.

History is the record of the impatient. They didn't wait for change. (Often enlightened in individuals but seldom in crowds).

For some reason, it's hard to push a 'problem' into the sea. So much better to make space for a shared solution.

The more a crowd focuses on a problem, the more it becomes the problem.

The fact that a lot of opinions are regional, suggests that many people don't think beyond their own experience.

People want to prove the merit of their ideas. The world should give them the space to do it.

The good news is; Not everyone believes all the bad news.

Money is tight because people are tight.

The Media

News stories focus mainly on repeating the negative. It's like junk food for the soul.

News stories are about the follies of the rich & the poor. The media can't think of any thing to say about average people.

The only creative people who should read newspapers regularly are Fiction writers & Comedians.

Popular culture can be more than a lot of people copying each other.

Openness

An open mind, opens doors.

Creativity is about openness. So be open to a better opinion of yourself.

People assume that all closed doors are locked.

People so quickly reject the very things that would improve their future. (Keep an open mind)

Intuition is when your instincts all point in one direction.

Intuition is what urbanized man calls instinct.

Intuition is something in you that senses something all around you.

Believing an idea is impossible makes it impossible.

Disbelief is a self-forfilling prophecy.

Not knowing if it's possible, doesn't make it impossible.

Having an audience (& a community)

Let the world see the love in what you do, and they'll love it too.

Be known for what you do. It's not who you know, but who knows you.

A crowd becomes your community when you know your purpose in it.

There are those that follow a crowd. And those that serve a community.

The artist see's the worts, the audience see's the beauty.

If your audience doesn't know what fires you up, you will leave them cold.

Create from what you believe, what disturbs you, what you care about. That is what people respond to.

The only time an artist should re-create something is to re-create what is in him, into the audience.

On your creative journey, you travel through the hearts of your audience.


If every story is a journey. Then the art is to know were your audience is now. And then to take them to a place you want them to go.

Begin by trusting yourself. Then gain the trust of the 1 important person in your life. Then your future audience.

Musicians that sing about Fire, remember being burned. It still ignites their music.

A critic is someone who has just been introduced to the future.

Creativity philosophy

1/ My creative philosophy: Communication, Relationship, Love. (Exchange of ideas, among equals, in the spirit of service).

2/ Content, technique, presentation. If one is lacking, the other two suffer.

3/ My goal was to become a Content Creator. And that content to come from what was already in me.

4/ So I began to explore what was in me: my interests, projects I enjoyed, repeated day-dreams. To find what I needed to create.

5/ What I found was that I had so much inside me to create from.

6/ I began to take notice of my random thoughts. I would say to myself, "what have I been thinking about"? The answer was always interesting.

7/ Inside, we aren't as passive as we think we are. Our inner world is buzzing with activity.

8/ Creative people can find some of their most personally meaningful ideas from this inner world.

9/ This inner world in known as the subconscious. It's like a lake. The surface is what you are learning now.

10/Under the surface is what you have learnt to do without much conscious thought. Like walking.

11/ Now, our ideas are like fish in that subconscious lake. We can bring them to the surface again if we look for them.

12/ See your self as a lake of ideas, not a ocean, because you are a unique identity. You're not part of an impersonal mass.

13/ Creativity is all about connections. Connecting thought, ideas, objects, people. It's not a 'force'. It not about an impersonal universe.

14/ The potential of a creative person is found in what is unique about you.

15/ And then to express your unique identity in creative ways.

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Kids grow best with some limits. Also people can be more creative with some limits.

The best philosophy encourages unity of purpose by encouraging many unique talents.

Creative values (The why)

In the past the most destructive country won. Now the most creative country will succeed.

Better to build bridges instead of barricades. Create links with people instead of destroying them.

Better to build schools than try and teach a whole country a lesson in submission.

War is a collective lack of imagination. What if the Cotton Harvester was invented before the US civil war?

I think I had Entitlement Issues. Now I believe there is so much I can give.

Great creativity doesn't begin with knowing HOW, but knowing WHY it needs to be made.

Why you create what you do is your headline. How you do it is the text.

If you know why you need to create, the how will follow.

Knowing why you chose your content or subject is more important than how you convey it.

Things to do: -Write everything down. (Doin' it) -Create projects. (Started) -Change the world. (Maybe next year)

Our greatest connection: Create what we value for those who will value what we create.

I just want to change the world. That's not too much to ask.

Your best ideas will be for others.

Becoming more creative: It's personal but it's not about you.

Finding creative purpose: What disturbs you is 'the problem'. What inspires you is 'the solution'.

Sometimes when we learn to live more creatively, we create a better life for everyone else.

Creative people share what they love.

Creativity is being generous in interesting ways.

Creative achievement is an act of generousity.

Love says 'Yes', wisdom says 'No'. Courage says what needs to be said.

Wasted talent disturbs me.