Exploring Your Creative Genius: Episode 43
In the most recent radio episode of ‘Exploring your Creative Genius’ the focus was on what neuroscience and social science researchers have learned about how we get into our most creative states.
A dozen or so research projects were discussed and I want to revisit two of particular significance to your creative lives.
First, research out of Drexel University showed how limitations can often help you be more productive creatively.
For this project two groups were challenged to produced as many rhyming couplets as they could in a given period of time. One group was given a list of 8 nouns and had to include at least one of them in each couplet. The other group was simply given the directions to produce the rhyming couplets.
The group that was provided the 8 nouns produced many more couplets, deemed more creative.
And while the researchers’ conclusion that this indicates limitations can often spur creativity, good ol’ Charlie Mingus, the jazz great, would say “If you want me to improvise, I need something to riff off of.”
So perhaps the more important conclusion is when you are getting folks engaged in a new project give them some starting points—open ended so you aren’t dictating, but something to riff off of.
The second project I want to revisit was led by Dr. Epstein and reported in ‘Creativity Research Journal’
For 6 months, 74 employees of Orange County in California agreed to regularly do the following 4 activities.
- Commit to capturing their ideas in a journal. It takes one understanding of a creative idea to hold it in your head. You achieve additional insights when you attempt to write it down.
- Imagine tasks that can’t be solved, projects with no solutions. How would you teach a dog to fly? How would you create a model of a brain? When you commit yourself to this exercise—writing your thoughts in your journal—old and new ideas collide, opening new perspectiveS.
- Broaden your knowledge. Read outside your interests. If you are a scientist, read a bio of Van Gogh. Take a class on a topic you’ve never studied. Additional research shows that this inclination to always challenge oneself to explore new ideas or places is strongly correlated with long and joyful lives.
- Surround yourself with interesting people, and interesting objects. One of the greatest delights I get from doing in-person Creativity Workshops is when they are over and folks don’t want to leave, they want to talk with each other, exchanging contact information for later meet ups. Their conversations make the most wonderful sound. Who is that person you’ve wanted to meet because she has a view on life you’d like to learn more about? Who do you know who has your interests and how can you support each other while getting to know each other better?
And when it comes to interesting objects, I have deer antlers and raccoon skulls and globes and photos and wood carvings and grand kid’s art and an old map of Ireland and large wasps nest stuck with dozens of feathers from wild turkeys and hawks and a Chicago Cubs license plate and a Huron drum that I made and lots of green cards to stare at…
After the 6 months the researchers, working with the participants’ managers, determined there was a 55% improvement in the quality of new ideas that led to $600,000 in new revenue and $3.5 million in cost savings. Creativity pays!
And so does being Intentional, the steady message I send to you, for that’s another way to consider what these 74 people did for 6 months: They were being Intentionally Creative…you can too.
“Exploring Your Creative Genius” takes an expansive view on what it means to be creative and entrepreneurial in an ongoing conversation led by Carl Nordgren — entrepreneur, novelist, and lifelong student with decades of experience growing his own creative capacity and assisting others to do the same in exciting new ways!
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