Week 55: Creativity - A Gold for Mind

“Success, many times, can be found only in the creative imagination of a man’s mind. Perhaps no other factor of success contributes more to personal achievement that does creativity.” (Dick Tooker)

“Creative thinking isn’t necessary original thinking… Most often, creative thinking is a composite of other thoughts discovered along the way.” (John C. Maxwell)

Dato’ Sri Dr. Tony Fernandes

 Airasia Group CEO, Dato’ Sri Dr. Tony Fernandes is the only Southeast Asian to make New York-based business magazine Fast Company’s list of 2011’s 100 Most Creative People in business according to the article on Travel 3Sixty° magazine (July 2011 edition).

Fernandes has not only democratized air travel, but diversified his great value, low cost philosophy with such successes as Tune Hotels, Tune Talk, Tune Money, and Tune Tone. Speaking about the recognition, Fernandes said,

“It speaks volumes of the kind or organizations we’re in where creativity, imagination, innovation and resourcefulness reign supreme. I am a dreamer and when you encourage other people to realize their dream too, you will find the creative spirit permeating and bursting in everyone.”

Creativity is very valuable. It is a pure gold no matter what you do for living. Are you a creative thinker? John C. Maxwell in his book’s Thinking for a Change (One of my favorite book) outlines some characteristics that creative thinkers have in common (with my summary):

Creative thinkers Value Ideas

Creativity is about having ideas – lots of them. You will have ideas only if you value ideas.

Creative thinkers Explore Options

Exploring a multitude of possibilities helps to stimulate the imagination, and imagination is crucial to creativity. Good thinkers come out with the best answers.

Creative thinkers Embrace Ambiguity

Creative people don’t feel the need to stamp out uncertainty. They see all kinds of inconsistencies and gaps of life, and they often take delight in exploring those gaps – or in using their imagination to fill them in.

Creative thinkers celebrate the Offbeat

Creativity, by its very nature, often explores off of the beaten path and goes against the grain… They are willing to tolerate a little oddness.

Creative thinkers Connect the Unconnected

Because creativity utilizes the ideas of others, there’s a great value in being able to connect one idea to another – especially to seemingly unrelated ideas.

Creative thinkers Don’t Fear Failure

Creativity requires a willingness to look stupid (Very true indeed!) Creative people know these things (failures) and still keep searching for new ideas. They just don’t let the ideas that just don’t work prevent them from coming up with more ideas that do work.

I heard enough of the creativity killers such as ‘I’m not a creative person’, ‘don’t ask questions’, ‘It’s not practical’, ‘It can’t/never had been done before’, ‘we don’t have time/money’, ‘we tried that before’ etc, If I believe or talk myself to those ‘killers’ words, by now you might never read any of my articles! Get rids of those phases in your vocabulary!

Spend time with other creative people that you know, asking the right questions that can stimulate creative thinking, think/get out of your ‘box’ and… well, can we just start with these suggestions first? All the best, fellas.

THINK BIG Think Creatively

START SMALL Start to stretch your creativity day by day

GO DEEP Oh, one important thing that I forget to tell you, since God is a Supremely Creative God, ask for His Wisdom! I think that should be our first step – pray for Wisdom..

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Reference:

·     John C. Maxwell, Thinking for a Change: 11 Ways Highly Successful People approach Life and Work. (Center Street, 2005)