Sunday, March 25, 2012
Creativity....quite a Creative title!
I am the uncreative brother and my sister is the creative one. That is the path that I feel my parents have basically laid out. My sister more of the "free spirit" has the more classical creative mind. She was a dancer. She works in advertising. She can create outfits. She had a creative writing major. She can design a room and decide where cool art pieces should go. "She has an eye" as they say. (haha as usual no one knows who they is.)
I am the more structured brother who played sports. I always had leadership roles. I got a finance major. Was supposed to do finance work. Now I understand there are some things that my sister is more creative in, but I am fighting back! I feel I can be the creative brother. And here is why....
I always thought I could tell jokes and can be pretty funny. But I recently had to give toasts at two rehersal dinners. Actually one of the weddings, I was MCing the event (my sisters wedding). Not only did I give a rousing top 10 list for how I knew my sister was going to get married, but could quickly input jokes inbetween each of the other speeches. A bit of a improv activity. At the end of the event people were crowding around complementing me and asking me questions like "Why am I in business school". Questions like that do always make me ponder why I chose this route, but that is not part of the essay. At a close friends rehearsal dinner a couple months later, I gave another rousing speech that left the young preacher who was in attendance saying that he had never heard a funnier speech in his life of going to many wedding events. Anyway the second talk gave me confidence that it was not a fluke and gave me some belief that in an instant I can create connections between random things I am seeing and a random assortment of things bouncing around in my head. If I can do it for comedy, I feel that I can do it as well for business and entrepreneurship.
I recently read the Innovators DNA by Clayton Christensen. He breaks innovators qualities into 5 key attributes. One of the main ones I connected with was "association". Ones ability to grow associations with things that on the surface might not be connected. After reading this I felt this could connect with my comedic skills that I have developed over the years. Maybe this is how I can use my other talents to impact my entrepreneurial ambitions. Basically I felt I need to change my mindset. How can I connect things that I find successful in one area and connect it with other areas. Obviously this is bit at the core of design mentality that the Steve Jobs book reiterated time and time again. I think it can also work with business models. You see a successful company and then play games of how you could twist and turn it for another industry etc.
On that note I just read an article yesterday discussing ways to be healthier and more creative. Not only did it mention diet, fitness, meditation, etc. But it really focused on how do you give yourself games to push you to think more creatively. His focus was on how quickly your creative muscles can atrophy if you don't work them.
(side note just received my first beer. We will discuss this later)
I believe it. Raytheon was a creativity drain. It led to a lack of inspiration and no active pondering of ways to do things differently. This was very different than my time during Teach For America. TFA had almost the opposite mentality almost to a fault. Somewhere in the TFA lore, the use of a 4th grade math text book to teach was almost blasphemous. It led to long nights and weekends creating "engaging" work sheets and openers and activities that would blow the kids out of their chairs with academic involvement. (lets just say some ideas were better than others)
Highlights were my writing and directing of the 4th Grade play "Bill and Teds Excellent Adventure Two: A Night Out with the Ladies". A play with all 130 4th grade students for the womens history month theme that led my biggest creative knuckle heads Cedric and Jose back in time to bring back famous women in history for their history class. It is amazing how much 4th graders from the hood know regarding an early 90s classic. Thanks TBS!
Number two was my teaching of similes and metaphors through the Nelly song Grillz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFw6kgAexpE&feature=youtube_gdata_player
As usual I digressed....
My favorite part about business school is that it has reinspired the creative notions in my mind. I would say it has been highlighted in strategy class or Doggetts case classes because you have open ended problems that you can take in many different directions. You can try to think creatively regarding potential answers. This has lead to my focus now on entrepreneurial acts in the future....we will see....
Lets talk about a part of the essay that I liked. Obviously it is the alchohol portion of the essay discussing how it can enhance creativity. Now I can certainly attest that in my comedic successes booze has certainly played a part...but this semester has been focused on what I would call business creativity. I have been developing ideas, creating business plans, thinking of different strategies, while at the same time trying to get stuff done.
I have created my perfect creativity structure.
Wake up 7am- Ice Coffee and work. I have 3 hours of very focused work and idea generation.
Yoga 11 am- I am becoming a believer of the effects of yoga. Not only do I like the classroom aspect and the fact it is quite a challenge for someone like me, but the chemicals flowing through my body after yoga are at times very creative inducing. Though I know I am supposed to clear my mind during corpse pose, I try my hardest but am usually unsuccessful. The advantage of this is that I have had great thoughts during corpse pose. Other times I have fallen asleep for 1 minute and woken up with a great epiphany!
Work from 1-3 with my yoga high.
Yoga high/relaxation wears off off around 3 pm. I reamp with some ice coffee.
A couple beers strarting around 8pm to 10 pm. This gives a natural energy and creative boost to end the day.
(Caveat. I do feel "that 2:30" feeling does exist if I do not get the yoga in at 11. I am a massive believer in the 2:30 cat nap for 15 mins. One of the most reninenergizing parts of the day)
Lastly I will ponder something that has crossed my mind that was broached in the essay regarding places of work focused on creativity. There are two kinds of jobs that use two man teams (in the classical sense) to do their job. Two man creative Copy Writers and Art Directors work hand in hand as creative teams. This is also found many times with Lyric and Music writers. (think Elton John and Bernie Taupin) These creative teams begin to know each other "intimately" and their abilities grow with time.
Business does not have this same approach. People are always seen as individuals. Does this lack of close teamwork over the life of ones career actually hurt their business potential. It is the thought that 1+1=3 that is used in the ad world and song writing world but lacks in other business areas.
As I type I just realized that this is also found with great WWF tag team champs! The beer is kicking in. Off to find some awesome WWF clips...
New Age Outlaws. (I would highly suggest watching the entire thing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpvhdO0eiY8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
The Bushwackers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMWheL-xsww&feature=youtube_gdata_player
It is amazing how the most creative fields in the world use this two man team scenario. I am very interested as to why so many companies do not use this same mentality. What if in classic marketing positions, finance jobs, or lawyers had a career path more commonly accepted by two people working closely together for a long time as apposed to as individuals.
Maybe it is a way to end this blog with an unanswered question...ahh the creativity!!!!
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