Awaken Your Creative Spirit

ARE YOU THINKING OR MULLING? by noula diamantopoulos

I think many times we fool ourselves by thinking we are working on a solution when in fact we are working on the problem. What that means is our thinking is stuck on how the problem is making us feel and that feeling is generally, terribly uncomfortable.

Every day we are challenged to make decisions. Some are easy. Some you don’t care about. Many are rushed and are gambled on, like the toss of a coin. And others are carried by what appears to be the very respectable use of logic and reason.

I believe we are either thinking creatively or we are mulling over a problem. The first way means we are solution-focused and looking at new ways, old ways and ALL ways to form a response that we are motivated to act on. We accept the problem as a challenge that will stretch us and we look forward to exploring the many and varied possible solutions our minds might come up with.

“Mulling over a problem” sounds like you are “thinking” about the problem – and you literally are, because you are thinking about the fact that you have this problem. And because you have spent a substantial time mulling over it, you know all about it, how it arose, what the issue is, and even who you can blame for it.

The Mulling Myth

We often push aside our ability to generate solutions until we have finished pondering the problem. Curiously, we value worrying as part of the problem solving process. Yes. Read that again. We value worrying and we value stress. Have you ever heard people say “Aren’t you worried?” or perhaps “You don’t seem worried about this.” when they are talking to someone working with their creative mind to solve a problem?

Reconnect with your Creative Mind

You know you have a creative mind, right? And it’s alive and well and always wanting to be part of the action.

The man wearing 6 hats once said that creative thinking is not a talent, it is a skill that can be learnt. It empowers people by adding strength to their natural abilities which improves teamwork, productivity and where appropriate, profits.

Reconnect with your creative mind by first playing with how the problem is phrased. Write out the problem on paper. Re-arrange the words. Now change your perspective entirely by rewriting the question starting with “How might I……?”

Let your creative mind follow the paths which spark its curiosity. Be curious about the words used to describe the problem. They may lead you on a wild goose chase, or if emotional language is used, well, that’s another goose chase entirely.

Here is a problem: “I don’t have enough people who provide trustworthy results and it takes a lot of time to recruit new people.”

The Mulling Response

“I can’t believe the attitude of the team members.”
“They are always producing unreliable results.”
“There is no commitment.”
“How am I going to manage this?”
“What can I do?”
“Qualifications mean so little these days”
“How did they get this position anyway?”
“They are useless.”
“How can I do my job when they can’t do theirs?”

Creative Response: Rephrasing The Question

“Do I have too few resources or is it that I don’t have the right mix of resources?”
“Is there nothing I can rely on from the team?”
“Are there ways that I can recruit quickly, and if so, what am I recruiting for?”

These questions then might lead you to the following creative thinking:

“How might I discover what the real strengths of each member of the team are and how might I learn about their strengths quickly?”
“How might I introduce a process quickly and easily to immediately mitigate errors?”
“Who do I know that I can call on right now for a short term solution?”
“How might I discover what’s holding the team back?”

Creative thinking is about making the challenge yours. You get to own it and then, and only then, can you find possible solutions.

However, something much more significant happens when you undertake this rigorous creative thinking process. You discover solutions that add value and grow the business in a better way. This is more than simply finding a solution – we can always do that. This process is about finding the best in fact the most appropriate solution that truly resonates with the growth of your team and the business.

Appearing in this Article:

Edward De Bono – man wearing 6 hats

Mulling – brought to you by sometime in middle England; from mullyn “grind to powder, pulverise” and used now as a considered reflective process that creates a lot of bull dust.

Clarence Birdseye – Okay, he didn’t make it into the article but this is the guy who invented the freezing food idea and how we came to eat Birds Eye frozen food. He said: “Go round asking a lot of damn fool questions and taking chances, only through curiosity can we discover opportunities, and only by gambling can we take advantage of them.”

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ART TO A T by noula diamantopoulos

Three Things You Need To Know To Become An Artist in Adulthood

You have decided to become an artist and you are a late bloomer. You attend art courses or even art school and you practice. You read books and study from old and modern masters. You watch videos about the artist’s life, read blogs, surf the internet and continue to practice.

Yet the journey you have undertaken doesn’t feel as smooth as it should. Why can’t you immediately create the way you want to? You are an adult, so you should be able to learn new skills and execute them quickly, right? You have the desire. You have the determination. Yet you are not seeing results.

Disappointment turns to anxiety in no time. And then those uninvited thoughts kick in. You begin to question your decision to become an artist. That one thought starts a flood of unhappy thinking that rushes through, leaving you with an even deeper feeling of uncertainty, which has now spread beyond your decision to learn art. You begin to doubt your ability to ever see a creative result that would make you proud, and then of course there is that serious concern about having any talent anyway. Without that, what’s the point?

Hold on and read on. There are three things you need to know about becoming an artist in adulthood.

1. TECHNIQUES ARE TEACHABLE

Art techniques are teachable. Technique is not to be confused with having or not having talent. Art techniques are like learning the alphabet so you can read and write. These are the building blocks to unlocking further wisdom from the writings of others or even your own writing. So if art techniques are teachable, the question then is, are you teachable? You might think you are because you attend class or you self-study, you do your exercises and you are motivated to learn. However there is one big T that may be stopping you from being 100% teachable – those limiting thoughts that live uninvited and rent free in your headspace (how did they get there anyway?).

Pause a moment. Close your eyes. Listen to the voice in your head. What’s it saying? That you are wasting time? That you should be doing something useful? That what you are doing is self-indulgent? That you have no real talent? That you don’t have what it takes to become an artist?

Ask this question of yourself right now. Do you believe with certainty that you are capable of learning? It’s a simple question. Are you capable of learning? Yes, of course you are. Whether you want to learn is another matter. The point is, if you believe with certainty that you are capable of learning then the only uncertain thing is how long it will take you to learn, and does speed matter? Does learning something faster than someone else mean you don’t have talent?

You are an adult who has decided to pursue an artistic life. Perhaps you feel pressed for time because of your age or because you have a job/career that you cannot leave just yet. That’s fine. Just don’t let these thoughts distract you when you are learning. If you do, you are not optimising your time spent learning art. If you focus on your lack of time, then you end up focusing on strategies like step by step instructions on how to take perfect photos every time, or creating a masterpiece in oils or the top 1000 words to use to become a bestseller. Refocus. You have given yourself the permission to study art and to be a student. Don’t forget you are starting from scratch with all the advantages of your late blooming years!

Approach your self-studies or in-class lessons with enthusiasm and joy, and do not lessen the value of the lesson only because it doesn’t help you become what you think you want to become. Instead, take and master each and every lesson, and watch how they transform you into the best of you – a person even better than you might have hoped for. Let the role of education ignite the fire that will fuel your creativity.

2. TRUST YOUR TALENT

Talent means hard work. I’m not talking about the hard work required to develop your talent, I’m talking about the hard work to see the talent you have right now. We are all unique beings. You know this. You have heard it all before but I’m asking you to stop, listen, and then “get it”. There is no other person on this planet right now or ever before exactly like you, nor will there be in the future.

A cat in a hat once said that today you are you, that is truer than true. There is no-one alive who is you-er than YOU – remember?

Do not fail to recognise your own unique spark. Trust your Talent. It is there. You were born with it and it is your journey to discover, nurture and gift it. Do not deny that which you and only you were given custodianship on this planet to create with. Each time you create something go “WOO-HOO,” say “Not bad,” smile even if it’s crap, because you are one step closer to revealing your unique artistic language. Always say “Thank you,” and be grateful for the experience.

3. BE TENACIOUS WITH YOUR TIME

Now here is what you have been expecting to hear. Practice, practice and practice. Put in those 10,000 hours and become the expert. How many stories do you need to hear before you truly accept that this is a journey? Okay, here is one more:

Picasso’s painting Le Demoiselles De Avignon took Picasso ¾ of year to complete with a documented record of 809 preliminary drawings. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, because he was tenacious. He was prolific. He made art his life.

And nothing has changed today. People who succeed (insert your own definition here of success) are tenaciously attentive to their passions, their loves, whatever gives them the juice to self motivation.

Practice is another word for training. We accept this of athletes & musicians. They work hard and for many hours. If you want to be an artist as a profession then the demands on your time are no different to working a 9-5 career. This shouldn’t stop you from pursuing your talent. This should encourage you to not compare your results with those of an athletic artist. Having said all of that, I have seen amazing works of art from the most naïve practices. Yep – the word practice appears again!

Set time aside regularly. Be serious with your time and accepting of your talent as you nurture your voice.

For all those late bloomers who are venturing into the arts: you did not begin as an artist but that doesn’t not mean you have not been creative all your life. Every problem and every challenge you have faced and solved has been a process of creativity. And now you are learning how to learn, learning how to accept and learning how to be disciplined without apparent reward. Whenever you feel discouraged, just think of Matisse, who was 56 when his first solo exhibition was held by the art dealer Ambrose Vollard. And he is but one of many late blooming artists.

 Appearing in this Article:

1. William Butler Keats – A poet who used the technique of reading and writing to make and remake prose & verse of beautiful thoughts beautiful to read.

2. Ten Thousand Hours was brought to you by Geoff Colvin – He wrote a book called Talent is Overrated and he is all about rethinking our human potentiality – love that kinda talk!

3. Cat In a Hat is of course the memorable Dr. Suess.

4. Henri Matisse snuck in for he epitomises the three T’s. He originally studied law – go figure.

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RECLAIM YOUR EXPERIENCE by noula diamantopoulos

Do you know how experienced you are? Or have you forgotten the riches of all your experiences just because they don’t come with a certificate or degree?

Of course we should get educated and celebrate our confirmations of achievement (insert a loud woo-hoo here). Yet our talents and our gifts go further than the paper record, which is like a train ticket we validate when we arrive that says nothing about who we met and who we became along the way.

Is it possible to harness our experience into invaluable insights that can be applied in the workplace, home and in our personal relationships? We all have a ton of experience, but what are we doing with it?

We dilute our experience when we say “That happened to me once” or “I’ve experienced that,” couching it in terms of an event, rather than a personal experience which has charged a light bulb of learning and realisation.

The word experience comes from the Latin experientia, meaning knowledge gained from repeated trials, and experiri, which means to try.  Thus, experience is as Gregory Alan Elliott stated, is “the past tense of experiment.”

Experimenting is giving something a go, and opening yourself to making mistakes, like Thomas Edison’s numerous trials in creating the electric light globe. And don’t underestimate the results you discover – I have gotten a lot of results in my life. I know several thousand things that won’t work!

A positive way we can view failure is as experience. That’s good. But we can take it further; we can change our perspective and reclaim our experience.

 Give yourself (another) a New Years Task: Rewrite your CV

To claim your experience you must first name it. And you can’t name something you can’t see. Begin by either writing out on paper or dictating to a friend; your experiences, experiments and “almosts.” Name them. Don’t be afraid to reveal your disappointments and shortcomings.

Write out all the things that you didn’t get right in 2011, and if you have courage and a good memory, go back even further in time. Deadlines that you failed to meet, books you didn’t finish reading (or writing), appointments you missed, unfinished workshops you enrolled in, ways you have mismanaged teams in the workplace, birthdays you have forgotten, budgets you have exceeded…
These are all examples of how you have wanted to achieve something but haven’t.

What lead to those failures? What weaknesses did you show? How can you work to change them? What stopped you finishing? Were those the right priorities?

You may not like what your experience shows up for you, and that’s okay. Randy Pausch said it beautifully: “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.”

Now that you have got the “yuk” stuff out of the way, it is time to think differently and write out or call out all the good experiences.

We often overlook the challenges we overcame on a project that completed successfully and we focus on the simple fact that we did good. Ah… but there were elements where you have had to shift course or create a novel approach – record these too.

It’s time to write another CV, highlighting the positives of what you learnt from your experiences last year, and what you’ve subsequently learnt about yourself.  Writing down what you may have learnt of yourself may take a little longer, as it can be disconcerting to try to honestly analyse ourselves as people.

For example, do you value and respect the people you work with? What is most important, your relationships at work or your work output? Do you have confidence in your abilities? Do you will yourself to succeed?

Don’t judge your thoughts as you write these responses. Again it might be easier to buddy up and allow your friend to guide you to the positives.

By claiming your past experiences you can discover important truths about yourself, gaining so much more than any ‘piece of paper’ certificate.

 As a man in a toga once said… Know Thyself!

Now you can see the gifts, strengths and inner values that you bring to any working relationship and environment – continue to grow these strengths and speak of them with conviction, because you bothered to get to know yourself.

 Appearing in this Article

Thomas Edison – Shining some light on how to hang in there.

Gregory Alan Elliott – I really honestly dont know who this guy is but he is acknowledged as writing those words – Cool huh!

Randy Pausch – This quote was taken from Randy’s book called The Last Lecture, written for his children as life lessons, but this is just as applicable to business. He has also written: Encourage Creativity, Learn from Captain Kirk, Celebrate Brick Walls, Dream Big, Be the first penguin, Rediscover the lost art of thank-you notes and Have Fun.

Random man in a toga – Ah… that would be Socrates!

Jarod Kintz – He didn’t actually appear in this article but was keen too! “I wish my stove came with a Save As button like Word has. That way I could experiment with my cooking and not fear ruining my dinner.”
(Quoted from: Who Moved My Choose?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change by Deciding to Let Indecision into Your Life)

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GROWING IN THE WORKPLACE – PART 2 by noula diamantopoulos

A Question of Direction? Where Are You Growing Into?

I know what you’re thinking: “Don’t you mean who are you growing into?” Yes, maybe, but I am curious about where I am right now and what I am doing right now and what an interesting journey it has been and how I have grown – into where I am!

Reflect

Growing is a creative process. You are where you are in your career right now as a result of a series of experiences. Experience is knowleged gained from repeated trials and errors (from the Latin experiential). Think about where you are right now in your career. How did you grow into this role? How creative were you with all your experiences? What did you create from all your experiences to date?

A mindfulness practice to access where you are growing into

Think about your where you are right now in your career, and say: Here. I. Am.
Just pause a moment and say those words again.

Say them slowly. One at a time. I know you are busy. You want to get to the punchline. Ah! This is the punchline. Say these three little words slowly.

Here. I. Am. Close your eyes and sound those words internally. Try each word – one breath at a time.

One breath, one word. Inhale and internally sound the word  “Here” and exhale. Inhale and sound the word “I” and exhale. Inhale and sound the word “Am” and exhale.

Do you feel different? You should, because you are not where you were a few minutes ago and we never feel exactly the same twice. But lets continue.

Journaling your Here.I.Am

After the short Here.I.Am mindful practice, gently open your eyes and journal. Write whatever comes up for you. It could be reflections of those three little words. Maybe there are no words, so make marks instead. Let your mark making freely flow across the page. Let your imagination connect with your senses and allow whatever is there to be captured on paper. Do not judge what you are doing or what is coming up. This doesn’t take long to do. Not long at all.

A curious question of Insight?

Are you growing where you are? Are you aware of which map you are following?

Read Growing in the Workplace – Part 1

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GROWING IN THE WORKPLACE – PART 1 by noula diamantopoulos

Just imagine wanting to go to work everyday grooving and oozing with positive vibes.

You are curious about what will happen today and looking forward to who might call you & what may come your way? You’re eager to make a contribution to changing the world and making it a better place. (Okay – maybe that’s not in your sights right now)

Still. You are keen to contribute, be productive, feel that you are respected and appreciated in your workplace.

Yet. It’s a mystery that we have come to blame the greatest place for our personal growth, as the one major cause for all of our dissatisfaction and unhappiness.

Ask Yourself this Question

We blame our workplace for our bad health, our poor relationships, our unhappiness and pretty much most everything that is yuk in our life.
So I’m wondering: How have you successfully become unhappy at work (Oh yeah baby – you know you have been successful here!)

A Creative Journaling Exercise

Why don’t you stop a moment and write that question down. Grab a sheet of A4 paper – yep go to the photocopier please. Place the question “How have I successfully become unhappy at work?” in the middle of the page and circle it.

Before you do anything else, just breathe for a moment. Take another breath and feel the breath pushing your belly out. One more breath and this time ensure that the breath is popping your belly out. Now close your eyes and breathe softly and slowly with your own rhythm for 10 breaths. (Use your fingers to keep count)

Gently open your eyes and with a soft gaze, reflect on the question staring back at you on the paper. Reflect a moment and sense the areas where you are not happy at work. Now respond. Please do not judge what you are writing, do not argue with what’s coming up and don’t try to make it sound pretty, just dump those thoughts down on paper.

Okay. Now grab a different coloured pen. Breathe deeply into your abdomen for three long slow breaths and then continue breathing in your own pace.
Take your breath into your heart and let it rest there.
What you see written in front of you are all the things you have created which have led to your success at being unhappy in the workplace.
Let your non-dominate hand write with the different coloured pen, picking  out three things that you can now reverse and begin to take responsibility for your own joy in the workplace.

How cool was that? One last thing. Seeing it and not doing it won’t create a change.

Please take action now.

Read Growing in the Workplace – Part 2

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Imagine for a moment that you have switched off your internal dialogue.
No sounds of letters or vowels of words entering your mind. Not even the feeling of a word. Just nothing.
What’s there?
The experience of nothing.
Nothing but space.
Space that you create when you go beyond the internal dialogue.
The space where imagination resides.
Imagination is the place where we create things that are not yet present.
It was from Space that we came into being.
This is the space of creativity.
Daredreaming takes place here in this space.
Daredreaming is play and play becomes powerful as the Space begins to fill anew to renew to re create us.

Imagine.

You can go beyond the internal dialogue.
This is a message from the universe – I have given you Space to be inspired, to explore and to create whatever you wish in it.

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His Holiness the Dalai Lama said, now if the scientists are asked how the universe came about, they have a lot of answers to give. But if they are asked why this evolution took place, they have no answers. A simple observation that caused me to smile and reflect on why I prefer to wonder than to ask why. Will you allow yourself to be filled with wonder – to be wonder-full, exploring the mystery, the magic and uncertainty with curiosity. Thats what it is to be wonder-full. It means your filled with curiosity about ‘stuff’.

Recently His Holiness was on Masterchef. When a contestant tearfully presented His Holiness with an incomplete dish, he took her hand and said “you did your best.”
The energy of compassion was infused with these words. They were not uttered in a “Oh well, ya didya best” kind of energy. The infusion of compassion in those few words made me think about how I could be more compassionate in my life. And I began to wonder…again.

The Mandala Book by Bailey Cunningham is a visual symphony, filled with 500 stunning mandalic images from nature and civilization.
Drawing from history, science, religion, and art, Lori Bailey Cunningham leads a journey that spans from prehistoric petroglyphs to Carl Jung, from tiny particles of matter to entire galaxies. She explains the concepts of mandalas, showing how they are at the root of life itself.

–

I was introduced to this book by Melanie – a student in my current Creative Shaman art course.

Its fabulous, inspirational, magical and has filled me with joy browsing the book and wondering : )

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ARE YOU AWARE OF BEING MINDFUL? by noula diamantopoulos

Mindfulness is the practice, the pathway if you like, of being present.

By simply pausing (take in a few deep breaths here) and then placing your attention on what you are currently doing in this very moment, will bring your mind fully to the act.

Try mindfulness when you next eat a meal or a snack.
When you eat a meal mindfully you engage all your senses in the process. Sit with your meal. Pause and smell the food and look at it for a moment and as you bring your food to your mouth, sense it. Feel each chew by simply placing your attention on the act of chewing. Eat in silence. No T.V or talking or reading a newspaper at the same time.

When you eat mindfully the taste of food is enriched and mindful eating prevents mindless snacking.
You might even want to try eating with your non dominant hand to help you slow down the process as well as create new neurological pathways.

Bring mindfulness to as many acts in your life as you can. Try it with a pencil and create a mindful drawing. Decide what it is you are going to draw. Say a still life of fruit. Pickup the pencil with your non dominant hand and move the pencil across the page, observing the still life, listening to the sound of the pencil gliding or scratching the paper. Push the pencil harder and make a darker mark, change the rhythm of the mark by moving in squiggles and purposely avoiding the straight line.

Ignore time. Enjoy the drawing moment. Expect nothing of the drawing. And when you have finished, turn your drawing away from you. Come back to it a little later – 10 mins is a good time, or longer. Go and do something else before you come back to look at your work and when you do – make sure you are in a mindful state.

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THE POWER OF WORDS by noula diamantopoulos

Words matter. And how they are strung together matters. And how they are expressed matters.And the choice of words you express yourself with matters. And the energy you say those words is carried into the hearts and minds of others and of your own and it matters.

Is it semantics? Yes it is semantics. Thats the point.

Pause and pay attention to the words you choose to express your experiences in life. Listen to yourself when you dialogue with another. Write down the words you use to describe a situation. Really write them down. You will respond differently to those very same words when they are written, when you can see them in front of you, committed to paper with no voice to say “ah but thats not what I meant when I said that”.

Become present to how you express yourself. Become mindful of what it is you are expressing. How? Check in with yourself first. What state are you in? Frustrated, anxious, doubtful or happy, light & positive? Wherever you are you will bring it with you in your words.

Words matter. Be fearless with expressing your truth and do not hold on to it be the only right way. Accept the many right ways of others and be prepared to shift your perspective, to see the same thing anew and with that you change and you grow.

“The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing< with new eyes" Marcel Proust
OR “with new words” noula diamantopoulos

Watch this short video on the Power of Words.

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