Scott Jeffrey » creative impulse

Your Creative Identity

Scott Jeffrey — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:58:55 +0000

Creative professionals and knowledge workers thrive on their ability to generate ideas and operate in a state of effortless flow. A consciously developed Creative Identity can help strength your connection to the creative impulse.

A creative identity is your internal representation of how you see yourself, a composite of your imagination, resourcefulness and genius.

The person who consistently comes up with great ideas usually has a strong creative identity. Those who struggle to be creative or don’t even attempt to do so, usually have weak creative identities.

Regardless of your profession, however, you can always enhance your creative identity by re-inventing yourself—by consciously designing a creative persona.

How do foster your Creative Identity?

1) Answer the following questions (and record your answers):

How would you define yourself?
What are your beliefs about your creative abilities?
Do you believe ideas are hard to come by or are they abundantly available?
Do you have the ability to contribute and positively impact others?
What do you do (have you done) that you are most proud of?

2) Take the answers to the above questions and create a statement about your Creative Identity—a paragraph that states your creative intention and ability.

3) Upon rising in the morning, put on some inspirational music, get into an energized state and read your Creativity Identity statement. Try to feel the words as you read them.

4) Repeat this exercise for 14 straight days or until you feel your identity shift. You’ll begin to notice more ideas arising at unexpected times.

Your creative identity can help determine future decisions and projects.

Until now, you may have been unaware of limiting beliefs about your creative capacity. Clarify who you want to become, grab hold of your creative powers and manifest the unimaginable.

Learn to Unplug

Scott Jeffrey — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:00:08 +0000

Perhaps the best antidote to our digital addiction is “unplugging.”

Unplug not for a few hours, but for a few days. Power down your computer and cell phone, and turn the ringer off on your phones. If it’s okay to be unreachable when on vacation—why can’t you do it for a couple of days at home?

But what if there’s an emergency, our minds scream in protest. Someone else can handle the hypothetical emergency that’s unlikely to happen.

I can’t be totally offline for two days, we say. Yes, you can. It’s really not hard and it can be a lot of fun. Just make the rules and don’t break them.

Live and breathe for a few days in your natural surroundings. Go for walks, smell the flowers, lie in the grass and stare aimlessly at the sky, put your hands in dirt and hug a tree.

I know, this advice might sound silly. You might assume I’m a granola from Southern California and that I’ll tell you to turn vegan. I’m not and I won’t.

As Carl Sandburg noted over 50 years ago: “One of the great necessities in America is to discover creative solitude.” Try unplugging. Embrace the natural world for a few days. The digital realm will still be there when you return. I promise.

Periodic unplugging will feed your soul and nurture the creative impulse within you.

If I were your doctor, I’d prescribe a minimum of two consecutive unplugged days once every month or quarter. Again, try it. Unplug. You won’t be sorry. It will defrag your mind.

You can achieve a level of balance and perspective uncommon today. Your capacity to make effective decisions, lead others, build teams, run meetings and complete projects can increase exponentially.

Don’t believe me? You’ll have to try it first …

The Capital of Creativity

Scott Jeffrey — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:48:29 +0000

The source of all wealth isn’t found in mega corporations, financial markets or even your local bank. The source of all wealth springs forth from the creative impulse.

What else but creativity can be responsible for such inventions as the car, computer, airplane or electricity?

Intelligence and business acumen are necessary to transform a creative idea into a financial empire. The origin of any financial empire, however, is a novel idea.

Walt Disney reflected, “It all started when my daughters were very young and I took them to amusement parks on Sunday … I sat on a bench eating peanuts and looking all around me. I said to myself, dammit, why can’t there be a better place to take your children, where you can have fun together?”

From this single idea, the Disney Empire was born. (Current market capitalization: $46.5 Billion)

A creative idea—powered by human ingenuity—can produce the miraculous. This is true in any time period—especially in economic downturns.

George Gilder of the Discovery Institute writes, “The crucial conflict … is not between rich and poor, Main Street and Wall Street, or even government and the private sector. It is between the established system and the new forms of wealth rising up to displace it—all the entrenched knowledge of the past and the insurrections of futuristic enterprise and invention.”

Wealth is the natural consequence of fully aligning to the creative impulse. Cherish the capital of creativity, nurture it and witness the fruits of ingenuity.

You Have Two Choices

Scott Jeffrey — Fri, 29 May 2009 11:00:39 +0000

In any moment, you have two profound choices: Resist what is or allow it to be the way it is.

When you resist what is, you struggle. You experience stress. You suffer.

Unfortunately, our minds are wired for resistance. The human mind wants to change everything.

To illustrate, try to think about a person in your life with whom you don’t hold any grievances. No matter how much you love someone, invariably you want to change something about them—and probably many things.

You can also look at the room you’re in right now. If you focus on any object, you may notice that you want to change something about it. It could be the positioning of a pen, the hum of your computer or two people talking in the background.

Right now, my mind wants to change the sound of my neighbor mowing his lawn. How dare he mow his lawn on a Friday morning!

The opposite of resisting something—or wanting to change it—is to accept things as they are. When you have acceptance, you allow things to be as they are in the moment. Acceptance doesn’t mean passivity or apathy—it simply means allowing the reality of the moment to be as it is.

I might want my neighbor to stop mowing so I can enjoy nature’s silence, but the reality is he’s mowing. My desire to change what is only creates repressed negative energy within me. What good does that serve?

If you allow things to be as they are right now, you become infinitely more resourceful. In a more centered state, you can tap into the creative impulse. You become a more productive, happy person.

The choice is yours …