The concept of Creativity and Killing are total opposite ends of the spectrum but many artists and people alike put them together.
So what does creativity and killing have to do with killing the inner child? Everything. See many times we get great ideas such as I'm going to take some clothes and paint them a certain way and offer them for sale to help a charity. The first couple of minutes your full of energy ready to put your wonderful, brand-new, life changing idea out into the world. Next you don't like most people do and say to a friend. Hey, I have this idea to put paint on clothes and sell it. The friend usually says oh, that's a good idea but so and so tried it and failed or it' has already been done before. Then what most people do is take that great idea and throw it in the trash can.
It doesn't matter how many good ideas came before your idea or are similar to your idea. You still have to do you idea. Just because someone puts paint on clothes and offers them to charity maybe your clothes will be different or your clothes will support different charitable causes. Most people don't think like this they say to themselves this idea is no good just like all my other failed ideas. The key to remember is any idea not given life will die. Which brings me back to my original point of not allowing anyone to kill your inner child.
When you were a kid if you got the idea to put mustard on apple pie you did it. If you got the idea to take your toy or doll and paint it whatever color you wanted you did it. But as you got older you learned what was important. You learned what was considered acceptable standards for your profession or art. Slowly but surely the spontaneity in you dies and withers away until you are a mechanical robot, with others putting in input and you spurting out the same contrived and manufactured answers. Now this isn't a call to do whatever you want, but I reminder to listen to the inner child. That small still voice that tells you to like at the problem from the non traditional way. Next time you have a problem look at it the way a child would. Remember don't let anyonekill your inner child.
"Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage." -- Dale Carnegie
I’ve thought a lot about this quote recently. Have you ever looked back on the past few months or years and thought, “Man, if only I really committed to doing ________. Things would be so much different right now.”
Maybe it was finally taking massive action on hiring that personal trainer and learning how to eat clean. Imagine if you had started that habit three years ago, and you looked back knowing that you did the best you could, and that resulted now in being in the best shape of your life. You don’t get sick or injured as often. You have incredible energy in everything that you do. Your partner finds you incredibly desirable, and you’ve inspired the loved ones around you to take better care of themselves.
Maybe you look back and wish that you had taking massive action to read a book every two weeks. Imagine how much you would have learned and grown from that experience. They say that any problem you are going through now has already been solved or written down. Imagine the confidence and capabilities you would have if over the past three years, you had read over 300 books.
For the entrepreneurs reading this, maybe you look back and think -- if only I had taken massive action on growing my following, how different things would be today. If only I had started three years ago. Instead of reaching 4,000 people a week, you were able to reach 400,000 people a week. Imagine the momentum and massive shift that would create in your business and the world. Imagine the impact you would be having.
Often times, there is so much to do, and we have so many great ideas, that we struggle to take massive action on any of them. Maybe we think that we can’t move forward with something without it being absolutely perfect. Our inaction creates doubt and uncertainty. We begin to listen to others about why something won’t work. The voice in our head starts to become a breeding ground for doubt, fear and uncertainty. We’re too afraid of focusing on the wrong thing or worry what will happen if we fail. Sometimes this goes on for months or years, and we end up not really accomplishing anything -- because we feel paralyzed.
Mark Zuckerberg once said, “The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that’s changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking any risks.”
One of the core values that has really grown stronger for me over the past few years is the idea of failure. A while back, I read the book The Lean Startup and it has been one of the greatest books I’ve read, because it instilled this principle in me to take action quickly -- and then look for the learning opportunity. Forget about being perfect. Forget about failing. Learn -- it builds confidence and courage.
Have something to look back on three years from today, so you can say to yourself, “I’m so glad I took massive action on __________.”
I'll leave you with one of my favorite Chinese Proverbs: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. But the second best time is today.”
AHA MOMENTS AREN'T MAGIC, THEY COME TO PEOPLE WHO HAVE CULTIVATED DAILY HABITS OF APPROACHING LIFE DIFFERENTLY.
Eureka moments are rare. The backstory behind great ideas is often more complex and winding than having an apple fall on your head. But the best part is that creative ideas aren’t reserved for a special group of people; they can come to anyone if you change your mind-set.
"The fact is, almost all of the research in this field shows that anyone with normal intelligence is capable of doing some degree of creative work," Teresa Amabile, professor of business administration at Harvard Business School and author of The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement, and Creativity at Work, told Fast Company in 2004. "Creativity depends on a number of things: experience, including knowledge and technical skills; talent; an ability to think in new ways; and the capacity to push through uncreative dry spells."
Whether they’re coming up with an innovative new product to launch, finding a solution to a universal problem, or picking a cool new place to grab lunch, people who consistently have great ideas have formed habits that help them think. Here are eight simple things those "creative geniuses" do that you can do, too:
1. THEY LOOK FOR INSPIRATION IN UNEXPECTED PLACES
Instead of staying focused within their industries, people who have great ideas look elsewhere, says Sooshin Choi, provost at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
"Many professionals go after information in their industry, but once you get that information, it’s too late—everyone has it," he says. "Even if you get that information faster than others, what kind of real difference can you make?"
Instead, Choi suggests looking outside your field. "Car designers might look at furniture designers for inspiration," he says. "There are endless examples of different areas where you can find inspiration."
2. THEY MAKE SLOW DECISIONS
In his book Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind, author Guy Claxton says intelligence increases when you think less: "There’s an expanding idea of what it means to be intelligent," he told the London Business Forum in 2014. "The narrow idea is all built around cleverness, which is the ability to argue, marshal facts, and interpret a spreadsheet. That it’s all done through reason; it’s all done consciously."
Research, however, has found that thoughts are going on in the margins of the mind in areas Claxton calls hazy, poetic, or uncontrolled. Calling this the "tortoise mind," Claxton says great ideas bubble up when you slow down decisions: "Whenever there’s a decision that needs to be made, the first thing you ask yourself is, ‘When does this decision need to be made?’" he says. "And you don’t make it until then."
Deciding prematurely stunts your ability to find great ideas. Give your mind time to work in the margins—when you’re thinking of something else. This allows time to collect more information, listen to hunches, and experience bursts of creativity.
3. THEY FIND INTERNAL MOTIVATION
People who have great ideas are motivated to work on something because it is interesting, involving, exciting, satisfying, or personally challenging, says Amabile.
Research has found that people are most creative when they’re intrinsically motivated, rather than pushed by evaluation, surveillance, competition with peers, dictates from superiors, or the promise of rewards.
"You should do what you love, and you should love what you do," she writes. "The first is a matter of finding work that matches well with your expertise, your creative thinking skills, and your strongest intrinsic motivations. The second is a matter of finding a work environment that will allow you to retain that intrinsic motivational focus, while supporting your exploration of new ideas."
4. THEY START FROM SCRATCH
Instead of improving on an existing item, people with great ideas pretend the product doesn’t exist and they design it from scratch, says Choi.
"If you improve something, then you only make it better," he says. "If you want to make something different, you have to behave as if there is no such thing."
Don’t ask yourself, ‘How could I design a smartphone?’ says Choi. Ask yourself, ‘What is communication?’ "If you start there, you may be able to discover new possibilities," he says.
5. THEY ARE WILLING TO TAKE RISKS
"Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one’s better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his idea, to take a calculated risk, and to act," said Maxwell Maltz, author of the 1960 self-help classic Psycho-Cybernetics.
Corporate cultures that allow employees to challenge the status quo or disagree will foster innovation, says Amabile. Training employees to be comfortable disagreeing with others and receptive to disagreement will create an atmosphere of innovation, she writes.
6. THEY’RE ALWAYS TRYING NEW THINGS
As you progress in your field, it can be easy to stick with what works, says Choi. "The trouble is that when you get older, you have many routines that come from memory of past successes," he says. "The past may not work in the future."
Instead of becoming set in your ways, Choi says people who have great ideas have formed the habit of trying something different.
"If you always order the same thing at your favorite restaurant, you are an old person," he says. "Try something new—maybe something you didn’t like when you were younger. Or do something you aren’t familiar with. You’ll feel young and you’ll experience new things and ideas."
7. THEY FIND CONNECTIONS BETWEEN EXPERIENCES
Great ideas are often the result of connecting two seemingly unrelated items. People who consistently have great ideas have become good at finding connections. In 1996—long before he thought of the iPhone or iPod—the late Steve Jobs told Wired magazine:
Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences, or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.
8. THEY’RE OPEN TO MAGIC
Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, says ideas are out there waiting to find the right person who can bring them to life.
"Ideas are these disembodied life forms, they don’t have a form, but they have a will. All they want is to be made manifest," she told Robin Young on NPR’s Here and Now. "If you can manage to open up your consciousness to an idea of living in a world of abundance, then you can believe that, constantly, ideas are trying to find human collaborators."
Do you want people to listen to you and take you seriously? It’s not just what you say; it’s how you say it.
You have great ideas and are on a mission to change the world—or at least part of the world. You want to make an impact on others. And you want people to take you seriously. So, how can you?
No, you can’t always control what others do, but you can control yourself. And to optimize your effect, consider the virtues of vocal influence.
To demonstrate the importance of voice, let’s look at the research. One study asked more than 300 people to rate certain personality traits. Participants were asked to rank traits such as trustworthiness, dominance and attractiveness based solely on the word “hello.” The result? An agreement of .92, indicating a significantly high agreement among participants for the personality traits each voice held. The take-home? People are judging you by your voice, without even realizing it.
The good news is that you can make a few changes to optimize the impact of your voice. Here are nine tips to take control of your voice so you can more powerfully influence others:
1. Use a deeper voice.
A lower-toned voice is perceived as being more authoritative and knowledgeable. Numerous studies have shown that a deeper voice is associated with traits such as being perceived as a leader, being better remembered and making more money.
If you don’t naturally have a deep voice, though, be careful. A study out of Duke University found that women who tried to lower their voices into what is called a vocal fry are perceived as less competent and trustworthy.
2. Change your inner dialogue.
The other day I was working with a woman who I had hired to assist me with a specific project. It became apparent immediately that she felt some resentment toward me, despite never having met her before. Her insecurities were inadvertently coming through in her voice—not in what she said but how she said it.
To prevent this from happening to you, address what you are saying to yourself by crushing your inner critic to help you develop a confident and positive voice inside and out.
3. Smile.
Smiling can actually cause you to feel happier, which can be conveyed in your voice. And people are often drawn toward positive people. What’s more, smiling causes structural changes in your mouth, which can influence the tone you produce. Smiling helps you sound more friendly and responsive.
4. Use a dynamic tone.
Monotone, or a flat voice, conveys that you are bored, or boring—neither of which will help you influence others. Instead, try to vary your tone with some higher and some lower pitches. It will sound more compelling and engaging.
5. Use speed wisely.
Slow speakers are judged as being less honest, less compelling and less powerful than those who speak more quickly. Speakers with faster-paced speech are deemed more energetic, competent and smart.
This does not mean to talk like an auctioneer but rather to use speed in a manner where the listener can feel your excitement and still comprehend what you are saying.
6. Don’t be afraid of a pause.
While this may seem like a contradiction to the tip above, using pauses wisely can also help you be impactful. For example, pausing before a statement can help enhance its sense of importance. A brief delay in speech can also help you gather your thoughts without the dreaded “um” or “you know” that can damage your effectiveness as a speaker.
7. Speak in their accent.
Research finds that people tend to distrust those with an accent that differs from theirs. While you may not be able to control your native tongue, you may want to consider taking steps to change your accent.
A friend of mine is a well-known TV personality who grew up with a thick Boston accent. When he moved, he realized how important it was to viewership to drop his Northeastern intonation.
8. Breathe.
Shallow, anxious breaths can result in tightened vocal cords, which can cause your voice to not only sound more anxious, but also go up (see tip 1 for why you want to avoid this). Deep, belly breaths, on the other hand, can reduce anxiety, relax your vocal cords and create a tone that is calmer.
9. Inflect down.
Inflection refers to where you place emphasis on the words. Those who tend to use a rising inflection (starting with a lower pitch and ending higher, such as when you are asking a question) are viewed as more uncertain and less trustworthy. Instead, use a down inflection (going from a higher tone to lower) to convey confidence and authority.
