Start With Why: Carrots and Sticks (Chapter 2 Summary)

This book summary series is taken from Simon Sinek’s Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (2011). Your curiosity and knowledge is infinite, but your time is not. Read this summary – and you’ll be inspired!

Simon Sinek tells that there are only two ways to influence human behaviour: You can manipulate them or you can inspire them. Inspiration (see Introduction) is always better than manipulation. When companies do not have a clear sense of why their customers are their customers, they tend to rely on a disproportionate number of manipulations to get what they need. Here are typical ways of manipulations, Carrots and Sticks:

Price. For the seller, selling based on price is like heroin. The short-term gain is fantastic, but the more you do it, the harder it becomes to kick the habit. Once buyers get used to paying a lower-than-average price for a product or service, it is very hard to get them to pay more.

Fear. Fear – real or perceived – is arguably the most powerful manipulation and also very destructive.

Peer Pressure. When marketers report that a majority of a population or a group of experts prefers their product over another, they are attempting to sway the buyer to believing that whatever they are selling is better. Peer pressure works not because the majority or the experts are always right, but because “we fear that we may be wrong.”

Novelty. Real innovation changes the course of industries or even societies, like the light bulb, the microwave and iTunes. Adding a camera to a mobile phone is not an innovation – a great feature, but not industry altering. Novelty can drive sales but the impact does not last. “If a company adds too many novel ideas too often, it can have a similar impact on the product or category as the price game. In an attempt to differentiate with more features, the product start to look and feel more like commodities and, like price, the need to add yet another product to the line of compensate for the commodization ends in a downward spiral.”

Manipulations Lead to Transactions,
Only Inspirations Lead to Loyalty.

Manipulations don’t breed loyalty, although they can drive sales. Over time, they cost more and more. And they increase the stress for both buyer and seller. Loyalty is when people are willing to turn down a better product or better price to continue doing business with you. Loyal customers often don’t even bother to research the competition.

Addicted to the short term results, businesses today has largely become a series of quick fixes added on one after another. “Carrots and sticks work just fine for transactions occurring on the average just once, but if you want to build lasting relationships, you have to inspire people.” Manipulations are perfectly valid strategy for driving a transaction. But if you want loyalty, inspired people. It is the feeling of “we’re in this together” shared between customer and company, employers and employee, mentor and mentees that defines great leaders.

Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (Introduction Summary)

This book summary series is taken from Simon Sinek’s Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action (2011). Your curiosity and knowledge is infinite, but your time is not. Read this summary – and you’ll be inspired!

“There are only two ways to influence human behavior:
you can manipulate it or you can inspire it” (Simon Sinek)

The ability to motivate people is, in itself, not difficult. It is usually tied to some external factor. Great leaders, in contrast, writes Sinek, are able to inspire people to act. Those who are able to inspire give people a sense of purpose or belonging that has little to do with any external incentive or benefit to be gained. Those who truly lead are able to create a following of people who act not because they were swayed, but because they were inspired.

For those who are inspired, the motivation to act is deeply personal. They are less likely to be swayed by incentives. Those who are inspired are willing to pay a premium or endure inconvenience, even personal suffering. Those who are able to inspire will create a following of people – supporters, voters, customers, workers – who acts for the good of the whole not because they have to, but because they want to.

People who love going to work are more productive and creative. They go home happier and have happier families. They treat their colleagues and clients and customers better. Inspired employees make for stronger companies and stronger economies.

Great Leaders, inspired!

Here's to the Crazy Ones, the Unreasonable People

When Steve Jobs launched Apple’s iconic “Think Different” marketing campaign in 1997, it was clearly a reflection of his own philosophy and ideals. He praised “the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently.” Nobody would disagree that Jobs himself personified this category, along with the famous individuals who were featured in Apple’s ads, such as Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Sir Richard Branson, John Lennon, Thomas Edison, Ted Turner, Mahatma Gandhi, Amelia Earhart, Martha Graham, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Pablo Picasso.

By their nature, radical innovators tend to be contrarians, heretics, revolutionaries. They are forever discontent with the status quo. They are people who challenge conventional thinking, who show no respect for rules, or precedent, or popular opinion, and who never accept “can’t be done.” They dare to defy the deepest-held dogmas, dispute the most established industry practices, and trash the proudest of institutional legacies. Where everyone else seems content to “zig,” they feel compelled to “zag” – to swim against the mainstream, contradict prevailing wisdom, break the accepted patterns, slaughter the sacred cows, question the unquestionable, fix things that “ain’t broke,” turn the seemingly impossible into the possible, and, well… to simply “think different.”

Innovators are not satisfied just playing the game. They have an irresistible itch to rethink it, to change it, to improve it. Or to invent an entirely new game. They are, as George Bernard Shaw once explained, unreasonable people. Shaw argued that “the reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Rather than conform to the existing patterns of the world, innovators can intuitively see what is wrong with those patterns – where others cannot – and they instinctively want to put them right, or to replace them with their own patterns. They quite literally want to change the world.

In a 1994 interview conducted by the Silicon Valley Historical Association, Steve Jobs said the following: “When you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much… That’s a very limited life. Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact, and that it – everything around you that you call ‘life’… you can change it, you can influence it… you can mould it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just going to live in it, verses embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it… Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

Jobs summed it up very well. Innovators don’t just accept that “the world is the way it is.” They are always driven to reshape it into the way they envision it could be. Innovators behave exactly as those “Think Different” ads said they do: “They invent. They imagine… They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy… Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Genius is 99 Percent Inspiration

The celebrated inventor Thomas Edison is well known for his statement: “Genius is 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.” While I believe that hard work is essential to a life of real success and fulfilment, I think that being filled with a deep sense of inspiration and commitment to making a difference in the world is an even more important attribute.

All of the great geniuses of the world were inspired and driven by their desire to enrich the lives of others. When you study their lives, you will discover that this desire became almost an obsession for most of them. It consumed them and occupied every cell of their minds. Edison was inspired to manifest the visions he saw on the picture screen of his imagination into reality. Jonas Salk, who discovered the polio vaccine, was inspired to help others from suffering from this dreaded affliction. And Marie Curie, the great Nobel Prize-winning scientist, was inspired to serve humanity through her discovery of radium. As Woodrow Wilson said, “You are not here to merely make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.”

How inspired are you in your own life? Do you jump out of bed on Monday mornings or do you simply lie there with a sense of emptiness flooding through your body? If your level of inspiration is lower than you know it should be, read a good self-help book or listen to a motivating audiocassette program. Attend a public lecture by someone you admire or spend a few hours studying the biography of one of your heroes. Start spending time with people who are passionate about what they are doing in their lives and dedicated to making the best out of life. With a healthy dose of inspiration, you will quickly raise your life to a whole new plane of living.

[From Life Lessons from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma]

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

5 Words to Know that You're Creative

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1, NIV)

Dorothy Sayers once said that if all we knew about God was the first five words in the Bible, all we would know is that God is creative. When in the first words of the Bible, we discover God’s identity as a creator, we get a glimpse of our own identity as humans who possess creative capacities.

Genesis (chapter 1) reveals the dimension of God’s creative process, which, not surprisingly, given our creation in God’s image, is replicated in human creativity. “In the beginning, God created.” God brings something out of nothing and order out of chaos. “The earth was a formless void.” God is a seer who can envision something others cannot and then imaginatively reveal the new reality as a unique, distinct entity. “God saw what He had made and it was good.” Like God, the good artist strives for excellence, not just expression, and the spiritual, intellectual, and imaginative quality of the work is the measurement by which we determine the worth of our art. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and the human artist seeks to relate and communicate through his or her art.

Our human creativity originates in God’s creative image, which is imprinted in our genetic code. Whereas God created out of nothing; humans create out of what exists. So Igor Stravinsky observes, “Only God can create. I make music from music.” Great artists will tell you that their imaginative inspiration comes from some unknown place. Filmmaker Ang Lee confesses that when things work, they come to him; they are not what he was willed. Mark Doty says that a good poem is something he finds, not something he makes. Imagination cannot be manufactured or willed into being, yet it is at the heart of the creative enterprise. God creates from a known place, Himself, and at God’s core, you find an imaginative being.

Imagination reflects originality, intuition, and the hitherto unseen, and so we evaluate our individual and cultural health by looking for evidence of our imaginative capacity to deliver the new and fresh, which elicits and illuminates deeper, transcendent meanings.

As image bearers, we are designed with a creative capacity.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

[Quote from The Culturally Savvy Christian: A Manifesto for Deepening Faith and Enriching Popular Culture in an Age of Christianity-Lite by Dick Staub (John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007) page 52-53]

Nurture Creativity: Mixing with Like-Minded Creative People

Like laughter, creativity is contagious. There’s nothing like mixing with creative people to nurture your own creativity. Jenny Hare, writer of Unlock Your Creativity, explains, “[Mixing with creative people] is a kind of alchemy – as though your creative souls sparkle in the air separately at first as you recognize a common creative flair, and then are magnetized to each other and dance together for a while. Ideas flow and you both feel uplifted and energized, and when you part you look forward eagerly to riding on the wave of creativity you’ve mutually started.” It sound very lofty at first as you read this, but when you really have found like-minded people that you long to be with, you just can’t wait to come back to “dance together” again.

Even though I love to hangout alone talking to myself (it’s a real fun way to discover deep hidden thoughts inside my head), I understand that I also need to mix with people, especially with like-minded creative people. For example, I once attended a motivational talk seminars by Dr. Peter Chee, president and CEO of ITD world, at Damansara. The attendees are a diverse community of bright, caring, supportive, open-minded people who are generous with their time, their learning, and their attention. It's also a great group of creative people. We had teachers, artists, university students, business people, nurses, pharmacists, author and a retiree. We were like-minded in a way that we are hunger for success in life and pursuit for continuous learning. I was struck by how simply spending time with people in a variety of other creative endeavours re-sparked my own creative juices. I found myself being more curious, more open, more optimistic, more interested and more interesting – all as a result of attending the seminar and interacting with like-minded creative people.

One of the basic tenets of creativity is to do things differently, and to do different things. So if you need to reignite your creativity, do something completely new. A simply broadening your horizons by mixing with like-minded creative people will also broaden your mind. Thus, try something new today. Here are my suggestions. Look for communities within the things you liked to do. Ask your friends or check Facebook groups (social media are great tools to find community). You will make numerous friends and strong connections from these communities. Meet people at different places such as conferences, seminars, talks or class. If you’re an activist like my colleague, then join the peaceful rally. If you love to make a difference in your community, join others to volunteer for something others might find intimidating; homeless assistance or elder care for example. You will meet people who are made of sterner stuff, and you might just learn some more about yourself. When I say mixing with like-minded people it doesn’t mean that they have to have a dozen of common hobbies or interests like you, but one or two will do. Share ideas, having fun together and mutual encouragements is the point.

“Meeting with other creative people in a mutually encouraging atmosphere is a great tonic

for your soul as well as your creativity” (Jenny Hare)

Plus, mixing with like-minded creative people also can effects your happiness,

inspirations and sense of belonging.

God, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Nurture Creativity: Hang Out in a Cemetery!

“Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected

and stepping outside your own experience”

(Masaru Ibuka)

By forcing yourself to go to places that may be outside your comfort zone or out of the ordinary, you not only find out new things or ideas, gain more experience and meet new people, but also it will let your creative juices flow with inspirations and refreshment. Let’s face it, even the most creative people go through a dry season once in a while. We all need to replenish the well of our inspirations. Here are some suggestions where you might want to try. Refill your creative well, get out and explore!

#1: Go to Waterfront and Watch Buskers Performing

Busking or street performance is the practice of performing in public places. Whether music, dance, art or theatre, these show have creativity written all over them. During a live band performance, for example, it's all about the performers, audience and the energy they created. Presentation skills, music skills, communication skills are all in one show. These are creative people. Be inspired and let your creativity nurtured by what you just saw and heard. Sometimes all it takes to get the creative juices flowing is to enjoy another art form. Hey, go to places to see buskers perform in town. You might be surprised how inspiring it can be.  

#2: Visit Sarawak Museum or Art Gallery

When was the last time you visit a museum? I assume in average – once in a life time. Unless you work in the museum or art gallery, you’re not quite likely to spending time there. Don’t worry, I understand. But even if you think you’re someone who just doesn’t enjoy museum or art exposure, you might want to ‘force’ yourself to do it at least once per year. You may be surprised and find that you actually enjoyed it. Extinct animals, ancient weapons and music instruments, mini model of longhouses, drawing and crafting by our local artists, masks for performing rituals, crafts design. Look at the old sampan (boat) design, for example, let your creativity take over and think about what does the craft or symbols means, why it was created the way it was. Ah, inspirations!

#3: Hang Out In a Cemetery

This probably my most uncomfortable place to visit. Admittedly, it may seem like an odd place to get your creativity flowing but I assure you, if you just let the scene stay in your mind, you can be inspired even by the tomb and grave. When I sat there and remembered my friend talked about how expensive coffin is, and how we spend lots of money to buy a beautiful and luxury coffin just to put it seven feet on the ground the next day, it doesn’t make sense! Then suddenly an idea came to my mind that may solve this issue of over-spending – recycle the coffin. Use it externally, but change it to plain, simple and inexpensive coffin for burial. Crazy? Idea is an idea after all.

Maybe you can try to image what their lives was. Pull out that pen and paper and start creatively writing their life stories. Where were they born, who did they marry, what did they do for a living, and how many kids did they have? Get as creative as you want. The idea here is to let the creativity flow and have fun with it.

#4: Get Back to the Nature

Many people find that simply taking a walk in a park or jog along a wooded trail is just what they need to refill the well of inspiration. I do this almost every day. Simply getting out in the fresh air and away from the computer and smart phone and external noises can cause you to relax and replenish your soul. If I feel a little less creative, or struggle to solve a problem or want to stop thinking about it for a while, I just get back to the nature.  Get out in the world and away from your day-to-day tasks for a bit, and you’ll soon find that those creative juices will gracefully flowing again.

Force yourself to go to places that may be outside your comfort zone.

Maybe, hang out in the cemetery? 

Wherever you can replenish your well of inspirations my friend.

God, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Nurture Creativity: Steal Like An Artist!

“Art is theft” (Pablo Picasso)

Great Artist Steal. Pablo Picasso is also often quoted as saying: “Good artists copy, great artists steal.” T.S. Elliot, poet and writer, admits, “Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different. The good poet welds his theft into a whole of feeling which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn.” Nothing is Original. Jim Jarmusch explains, “Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent.”

Find Something Worth Stealing Today. “Every artist gets asked the question, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’” writes Austin Kleon, “The honest artist answers, ‘I steal them.’ How does an artist look at the world? First, you figure out what’s worth stealing, then you move on to the next thing. That’s about all there is to it. When you look at the world this way, you stop worrying about what’s ‘good’ and what’s ‘bad’ – there’s only stuff worth stealing, and stuff that’s not worth stealing. Everything is up for grabs. If you don’t find something worth stealing today, you might find it worth stealing tomorrow or a month or a year from now.” Don’t Neglect Ideas, Take It. As Mark Twain wisely suggests, “It is better to take what does not belong to you than to let it lie around neglected.”

New Idea = Combinations of One or More Previous Ideas. Carl G. Jung, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, observed: “Our souls as well as our bodies are composed of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors. The ‘newness’ in the individual psyche is an endlessly varied recombination of age-old components.” Austin Kleon also wrote, “Just as you have a familial genealogy, you also have a genealogy of ideas. You don’t get to pick your family, but you can pick your teachers… your friends… the music you listen to… the book you read… the movie you see.” Be Apprentice to Great Thinkers. “Chew one thinker – writer, artist, activist, role model – you really love. Study everything there is to know about that thinker.” “The great thing about dead or remote masters is that they can’t refuse you as apprentice. You can learn whatever you wants from them. They left their lesson plans in their work.”

The title of this article is 100% steal from Austin Kleon’s book Steal Like An Artist

95% quotes (a.k.a. steal) from various writers
3% edited and modified from people’s writings
only 2% my original words. Come on, steal like an artist!

“If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism;

if you steal from many, it’s research.” (Wilson Mizner)

God, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Nurture Creativity: Take a Sit, Drink Starbuck Coffee and Observe People

Pic from: jolingyeoh.blogspot.com, thanks!

“One very important aspect of motivation is the willingness to stop and to look at things that

no one else has bothered to look at. This simple process of focusing on things that are

normally taken for granted is a powerful source of creativity” (Edward de Bono)

Off day. After work. Free time. With a cup of hot Starbuck coffee or simply bring one from home. Find a place to sit. At the mall, food court, the street, football field, in front of the church with pen and paper. This one is fun – people watching can be very interesting! Try this: set aside some time to hang out alone at a nearby park (or anywhere public as I mention above) and observe those around you. Pay attention to how they walk and talk, what they're saying and wearing, and how they interact with others. This is fun.

As you observe them, begin to write down different details. Pay attention to your senses and write about things you see, hear, feel and smell. Don't spend too much time thinking hard, just write or take notice whatever comes to your mind. This practice can help you improve your observation skills. It also helps you learn to focus and be mindful of what's going on around you. When you practise this and begin to write it down or pay attention to what comes to your mind, you'll start using those creative thinking brain muscles that need to be exercised.

If you want to nurture your creativity, be mindful and observant. Too often we go through life missing many of the details, but if you make it a point to notice what’s happening around you, you’ll soon find many creative ways to use what you learn in your writing, artwork, or other creative endeavours. I practise and use this observation skill to help me to bring home the Bible lessons to my hearers by translating the ancient Scripture into daily life, to generate ideas for blogs and to improve my alertness of what’s around me (I can be so absorb in my own world sometime).

Do people watching with a cup of coffee or tea, whatever you prefer

God, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Nurture Creativity: Believe that You're Spider-Man

Spider-Man, the creation of writer Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko was an idea that almost didn’t happen. At first, Marvel Comics, the publisher did not think that readers would like or be able to relate to a superhero that was a spider (I wonder, how about Ant-Man?) But after almost 50 years now, Spider-Man has become one of the most famous and popular superheroes ever.

I re-watched Spider-Man movies all over again. How Peter Parker becomes Spider-Man is quite simple. Peter Parker, a nerdy high school student who wears thick glasses, loves reading, enjoy studying and is very unpopular and low profile. While attending a school field trip to a science exhibition on radiation, Peter is bitten on the hand (other version, on the neck) by an irradiated spider. Then, Peter begins to feel sick and soon starts to develop spider-like abilities. These include ability to stick to things, great strength, very fast and agile, and some versions adds night vision and ability to make spider webs (or through a machine he creates). The most unique of all is his – spider sense. Spider-Man the superhero is born.

What I like about Spider-Man a.k.a. Peter Parker is that he is unique among all superheroes. He is a teenager with all the issues that teenagers face (so it is with his adulthood). He is not really a tough hero. He shows a wide range of emotions that I can really identify with such as vulnerable, makes mistakes, doesn’t always have perfect relationships with women or others, is not always trusted by society and is not very comfortable in life generally. He is also alone much of the time than many other superheroes. In fact, Spider-Man doesn’t have sidekicks like most heroes. He often talking to himself. Spider-Man is so appealing to me because he is among the most human of the superheroes. Spider-Man, my favourite hero!

Now, what Spider-Man have to do with being creative? Simple: Spider-Man is you and me. We might not have great strength, speed and agility but we have minds that can produce great ideas. We might not have night vision but we can dream dreams, fill the world with imagination and casting visions for the future. We might not have the ability to make spider webs but we can make idea happened. Believe that you’re creative. God have provide you with these abilities, use it for good and responsively. Uncle Ben before he die says this to Peter Parker: “With great power there must also come great responsibility.” We are not superheroes but we’re special. We’re creative. Isn’t that amazing? Amazing Spider-Man are human being like us after all. Failures, mistakes and rejections may come your way but if you believe that you’re creative, you can make a difference like heroes. Use your spider sense, produce ideas and take actions.

You’re creative. “Everyone is born creative,” write Hugh MacLeod, “Everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten. Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc. Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug' is just a wee voice telling you, 'I'd like my crayons back, please.”

Spider-Man is born

You’re born to be creative

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Nurture Creativity: Be Crazy, Think Differently

After watching Computer History Museum channel interview Walter Isaacson, author of Steve Jobs: The Authorized Biography, I instantly mesmerized by Steve Jobs’ personalities. I then watched BBC’s Steve Jobs Documentary: Billion Dollar Hippy and Discovery Channel’s iGenius: How Steve Jobs Changed the World on Youtube. After that, I went to Popular Bookstore to get any books on Steve and I found a very great book offer of Jay Elliot’s The Steve Jobs Way: iLeadership for a New Generation for RM15 only! Usually it’s RM85.90. Wow! Awesome!

When I or anyone think of intuitive leadership, innovative thinker, visionary, and world changing creative-idea guy, one cannot not think of Steve Jobs and his company Apple. Have you heard it famous “Think Different” campaign before? Not long after some conflicts and leadership problems in his own founded company, Steve Jobs returned to Apple. When he returned, the iconic “The Crazy Ones” commercial was aired as part of the larger “Think Different” campaign. What was less known at the time was that Steve Jobs write the commercial himself. He wanted to revive the company and inspired not only its customers but its employees as well. The version of “The Crazy Ones” that Steve himself narrates didn’t aired until after his dead. If you already watch the commercial, you will remember this legendary speech:

“Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Mind you, there’s a fine line between creativity and insanity. I don’t mean (I think Steve Jobs also don’t mean) clinical insanity – there’s nothing good about that. But when I say “Be Crazy, Think Differently” I mean a kind of functional craziness that should inhabit our creativity. That wacky and insane-sounding concepts of ideas are what I’m talking about. Be crazy. Remember, not all crazy ideas will worked out. Sometimes crazy ideas has to come at the right time. But what is sure is that the world need “The Crazy Ones” – are you the one?

Be crazy, think differently

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

Be Creative: Let’s Get Started!

“Creativity with Food” by Hong Yi 

“One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius” (Simone de Beauvoir)

Creativity cannot be taught in the way that you can teach maths – nor by merely reading books or thru this blog articles – but it can be encouraged to grow and cultivate. If you decides to be creative, you’re conditioning yourself to be creative and welcoming good ideas into your mind. You don’t need to be a genius like Albert Einstein or cleaver like Edward de Bono or multi-gifted and talented like Leonardo da Vinci, all you need to do is to open yourself to the creative spirit that lies within you. Everybody have the capacity to be creative. So, be confidence and get started!

Here are some tips from Robert Allen, author of How to Be a Genius, on how-to fan your creative spark into a flame:

§  In future, all your ideas (however trivial they may seem) have to be collected and kept. You never know when an idea will come in handy, or when something that seemed unimportant when you first thought of it will suddenly become of vital importance.

§  Pick some creative projects to get yourself started. It helps to have several projects on the go at the same time, as they tend to cross-fertilize each other. It also helps if the projects are of quite different types.

§  Work on your project regularly and methodically. Don’t ever just sit around waiting for inspiration. If one project gets bogged down, turn to another and work on that. Make sure that you set yourself goals and deadlines – if you don’t do this, you may find that you run out of steam and fail to finish things you’ve started.

§  Try to keep your attitude as flexible as possible. Your subconscious mind has an agenda of its own and, in order for your efforts to succeed, you need to prepared to change your plans to accommodate whatever your subconscious prompts you to do.

§  Remember to have fun! Creativity is hard work but it is also enjoyable. Don’t get so focused on attaining your goal that you forget to enjoy the creative process.

§  Remember that having bright ideas, though very important, is only a part of the creative process. Once you have the idea you then have to work hard to bring it to fruition. This is the part of the process that defeats many would-be creative people. They enjoy the processes by which bright ideas are born but lack the energy to see their project through to the end. What a waste of good ideas! Make sure that you are a worker as well as a dreamer.

Be creative, let’s get started!

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)

How-To Generate Ideas #3: Read Many Books

“Libraries were full of ideas – perhaps the most dangerous

and powerful of all weapons.”(Sarah J. Maas)

In my opinion, books are one of the most wonderful medium to transfer ideas and for creating new thoughts and stimulating great ideas. Books, good books will not only inform us but also transform our thinking. “The only real use of books is to make a person think for himself,” writes Aleph Bey, “If a book will not set one to thinking, it is not worth shelf room.” When I read, it helped me learn more and expand my way of thinking. Books really got me to activate my idea generator.

I read widely and variously: from theology to philosophy, spiritual to personal growth, leadership and business, biography and autobiography, fiction and non-fiction. I sometime take a half day (or the whole day) to browse book at the bookstores such as MPH, Popular and Salvation. I even bought and downloaded free audiobooks in the internet! Why? To refill the wells of inspiration, to receive plenty of thought stimulation and to refresh the flow of ideas. Read many books... and create your own personal library.

Lord, Give Us Today Our Daily Idea(s)