Unlock Your Inborn Creativity
“Make every thought, every fact, that comes into your mind pay you a profit. Make it work and produce for you.
Think of things not as they are but as they may be. Don’t merely dream but create!” Robert Collier
Tony Buzan is a brain expert. He is the past president of the Mensa Society, an organization only open to people who score in the top 2% on standardized I.Q. tests, and an author of several books on creativity, learning and intelligence. According to him, and to many other authorities in the field, the mental potential of the average person is largely untapped and virtually unlimited.
Your neocortex, your thinking brain, has approximately 100 billion cells or neurons. Each of these cells bristles, like a porcupine, with as many as 20,000 ganglia or fibers that connect it to other brain cells.
Each of these cells is, in turn, connected and interconnected to thousands and millions of other cells, like an electric grid that lights up and powers a large city. Each of these cells, and each connection between these cells, contains an element of mental energy or information that is available to every other cell. This means that the complexity of your brain is therefore beyond belief or imagination.
According to Tony Buzan, and other brain experts, the number of combinations and permutations of brain connections you have is greater than the number of molecules in the known universe. It would be the equivalent of the number one followed by eight pages of zeros, row after row and page after page.
Enormous Reserve Capacity
As mentioned earlier, the average person uses about 1% or 2% of their brain capacity for 100% of their functioning in life and work. The rest is “reserve capacity” that is seldom tapped into or used for any reason.
Most people “go to their graves with their music still in them.”
You do not need to achieve a miracle to bring about spectacular results in your life. You only need to use a little bit more of your existing brainpower than you are using today. This small improvement in your thinking ability can change your life so profoundly that both you and others will be astonished by what you accomplish in the months and years ahead.
According to research conducted by Professor Sergei Yeframov in Russia some years ago, he concluded that if you could use just 50% of your existing mental capacity, you could complete the Ph.D. requirements of a dozen universities, learn a dozen languages with ease and memorize the entire 22 volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Double Your Income?
If you are currently using only 2% of your mental potential, and you could increase that to 4%, you could double your income, shoot ahead in your profession, rise to the top of your field and transform your life. If you could use 5% or 6% or 7% of your potential, you would begin performing at a level that would amaze yourself and everyone around you. It was estimated that even Albert Einstein never used more than 10% to 15% of his mental potential at the height of his powers, and he was considered to one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived.
Creativity Is A Natural Ability
Fully 95% of children tested between the ages of three and five test out as highly creative. The same children, tested again as teenagers, test out at about 5% highly creative. What happened to them in the interim? As they went through school, they were taught that, “If you want to get along, you go along.” They learned not to challenge the teacher or to suggest unusual ideas. In their attempts to be liked and accepted by their peers, they allowed their creativity to die down, like a fire without fuel.
The good news is that creativity is a natural and normal ability, possessed in quantity by virtually everyone. It is inborn, a part of your genetic structure, a faculty that is uniquely human. Everyone is creative. Fully 95% of the population has the ability to function at exceptional, if not genius levels, given the right situation and circumstances.
Use It Or Lose It
But your creativity is like a muscle. If you don’t use it, you lose it. Just like a muscle, if you do not exercise your creativity and stretch it regularly, it becomes weak and ineffective. Your ability to generate ideas must be constantly utilized to be kept in top condition.
Fortunately, at any time, you can begin tapping into your creativity and using it at a higher level. You can actually begin activating more neurons and dendrites in your brain, creating more and more connections and interconnections. Each time you use more of your existing brainpower, you become even more capable of thinking better, and with greater clarity.
Ideas Are The New Source Of Wealth
Today, we are in the information age. For the rest of your life, ideas will be the major source of new wealth. Ideas contain the keys to solving every problem. They are the most important tools for achieving any goals. And since your ability to generate new ideas is largely unlimited, your ability to achieve any goal you set for yourself is unlimited as well.
All wealth comes from adding value, from producing more, better, cheaper, faster and easier than someone else. One good idea for adding value for others is all you need to start a fortune.
When you have clear goals, written and rewritten, visualized and emotionalized, you trigger your conscious, subconscious and superconscious minds into generating a continuous flow of ideas for goal attainment.
Solve Any Problem
There is no problem you cannot solve, no obstacle you cannot overcome and no goal that you cannot achieve by tapping into your creative mind, exactly as it is today. You have far more intelligence and mental potential right now than you could ever use, even if you lived 100 years. Just because you have not accessed all of your mental powers up until now does not mean that you cannot begin using them from this day forward.
Physical fitness and mental fitness are very similar, in some respects. If you want to become physically fit, you have to work out and engage in physical exercise. If you want to build physical muscles, you must “pump iron” and drive new blood into your muscles by straining them with dumb bells or bar bells. The more stress you put on your muscles, the stronger they become over time.
Your mind is very similar. In order to build your mental muscles, you have to “pump mental iron.” You have to put stress and strain on your brain, concentrating all of your mental energies to generate ideas and solutions, and to solve problems on the way to your goals.
Practice Mindstorming Regularly
The most powerful technique for improving your intelligence and increasing your creativity is what I call “Mindstorming.” The way it works is simple. The results that you get will be so amazing as to be life changing.
You begin the mindstorming process by first getting a clean sheet of paper. At the top of this page you write your goal or problem in the form of a question. The simpler and more specific the question, the better will be the quality of the answers that you generate in response to it.
For example, instead of writing a question like, “How can I make more money?” you would write, “How can I double my income in the next 24 months?”
Even better, if you are earning $50,000 per year today, your question should be, “How can I earn $100,000 per year by December 31 (of a specific year)?”
Each of your answers should be written using the “Three ‘P’ Formula.” It should be Personal, Positive and in the Present Tense. In other words, your answers should be written as affirmations or instructions from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind.
Often, you will write down answers on this sheet and promptly forget them. Then, sometime later, as a result of superconscious functioning, you will attract into your life an opportunity to put one of your answers into action.
Mastering The Method
Once you have written your question at the top of the page, you then discipline yourself to generate at least 20 answers to that question.
You can write down more than 20 answers to the question, but it is essential in this exercise that you set a goal for a minimum of twenty.
Your first three to five answers will be easy. You will quickly come up with answers like “work harder,” “start earlier and stay later,” “work on higher value tasks.”
Your next five answers will be more difficult. You will have to drill down and dig deeper to come up with less obvious ways but more creative ways to answer your question.
Your last ten answers will be the most difficult of all. Many people find this part of the exercise so difficult that their minds go blank. Their eyes glaze over. They become light headed with the rush of blood to their brains that takes place when you begin this process of “pumping mental iron.”
However, no matter how long it takes, especially the first few times you practice this exercise, you must discipline yourself to keep writing until you have at least 20 answers. Sometimes the 20th answer that you generate will be the breakthrough answer that enables you to save yourself thousands of dollars and many hours of hard work. Often, your last answer is the inspired idea that changes your life and career.
Select One Action
Once you have at least 20 answers, go back over your list and review your answers. Then, select at least one action that you can take immediately to begin moving yourself more rapidly toward your goal, or toward solving the problem.
You can multiple the effectiveness of this process by taking the very best answer that you identified in the first list of 20 and writing it at the top of a fresh sheet of paper in the form of a question. Then, see if you cannot generate 20 answers to that question as well. This combination exercise will rev you up mentally, like stepping on the accelerator of a car while the transmission is in neutral. Your mind will sparkle and dance with mental energy, and bristle with ideas, like the bright lights of a Christmas tree.
For example, your first question could be “How can I double my income to $100,000 over the next 24 months?” One of your answers could be, “I work two extra hours each day.”
You could transfer this answer to a new sheet of paper and phrase it as a question: “What can I do to get two extra hours of productive time each day?” You can then begin writing 20 different things that you can do to save time, gain time and spend two additional hours on productive work each day.
Whatever answer you choose, put it into action immediately. Do something. Do anything. The faster you take action on this exercise, the greater and more continuous will be the flow of ideas as you go throughout the day. If you generate these ideas and then do nothing with them, the creative flow will slow down and stop.
Use Mindstorming On Every Goal
The very best time to do this exercise is first thing in the morning, right after you have rewritten your goals in your spiral notebook. Each morning, you can take one goal, rewrite it as a question and then generate 20 answers to that question. You can then immediately get busy and implement one of your answers.
You can perform this exercise repeatedly on the same goal, if the goal is big enough and important enough to you. Don’t worry about writing down the same answers, over and over again. The more you practice this exercise, the more likely it is that you will trigger completely unexpected breakthrough ideas. This may require several days or even weeks of work before the flash of inspiration takes place. You must be patient and determined. It will come.
The Cumulative Power of Idea Generation
Imagine that you were to perform this exercise every morning before you started out, five days per week. You can take the weekends off to relax your brain. If you did this exercise five days per week, you would generate 100 ideas per week. If you practiced this exercise 50 weeks per year, you would generate 5,000 ideas over the course of the next 12 months. And you don’t even have to think on your vacation!
If you were then to implement one new idea each day to help you to move faster toward your goals, that would work out to one idea per day, multiplied times five days per week, multiplied times 50 weeks per year. This would amount to 250 new ideas per year that you would implement in your life.
Now, here is a question: Do you think that this exercise, conducted regularly, would have an impact on your life and future? In a world where the average person has very few ideas at all during the year, do you think that this exercise would give you an edge in your field? Do you think that, if you did this every day, you would soon become wealthy and successful in anything to which you applied yourself? I think the answer is clear.
One good idea can save you years of hard work, or thousands of dollars. A multiple of good ideas, one after the other, building on each other, will make you rich, happy and successful, virtually without fail.
Focus On The Solution
As mentioned earlier, successful people are intensely solution-oriented. The fact is that life is a continuous succession of problems and difficulties, without end. This river of problems is only interrupted by the occasional crisis, which makes the problems seem small in comparison.
In fact, if you are living a busy life, you will probably experience a crisis of some kind every two to three months throughout your life. You will have business crises, family crises, financial crises, health crises and other crises. The problems and crises never stop. They keep coming, like the waves of the ocean. The only thing you can control is your responses to these problems and crises. And therein lies the key to your success.
Successful people respond effectively to problems. Ineffective people do not. Successful people take a deep breath, relax and think clearly. They look for the good in every situation. They seek the valuable lesson. Above all, they focus on the solution, on what can be done, rather than what has happened and who is to blame.
Deal With Each Problem Effectively
There is a methodology that you can use to solve any problem. It requires that you approach the business of problem solving systematically, and in an organized fashion. Just like there is a process for solving mathematical problems, there is a process for solving business and life problems, and you can learn it use it for the rest of your career.
Step One: Define the problem clearly. A problem properly defined is half solved. It is absolutely amazing how much time is wasted floundering around looking for a solution when no one is quite clear about the problem.
Step Two: Ask, “What are all the possible causes of this problem?” Look for both the obvious and the not so obvious causes of the problem. How did it begin? What are its origins? What triggered it in the first place? What is the critical variable that changed to cause the problem in the first place? What assumptions were made that led to the problem? Just like a doctor conducting an intensive examination on a sick patient, you should thoroughly dissect the problem before you attempt to solve it.
Step Three: Ask, “What are all the possible solutions?” Avoid the natural tendency of most human beings to leap from a problem definition to a conclusion regarding a solution of some kind. Always ask, “What else is the solution?”
Sometimes the best solution is to nothing at all. Sometimes the best solution is to gather more information. Sometimes, the best solution is to realize that this is not your problem and pass it onto someone else whose responsibility it is.
Step Four: Once you have identified several possible solutions, ask, “What must this solution accomplish?” the only way you can judge the attractiveness of a solution is to determine, in advance, what you want the solution to accomplish.
You’ve heard it said that, “The operation was a success, but the patient died.” It is very common for us to initiate a solution, and implement it, but the problem is not only not solved, but it is worse than it was before we took action in the first place.
Be sure that the solution you select will accomplish the purpose you had in mind when you started on the problem solving exercise in the first place.
Step Five: Once you have decided on the ideal solution, assign specific responsibility, or take responsibility yourself for implementing the solution. Set a deadline for implementation. Set a measure by which you can determine if the solution has been effective.
A problem solving discussion that does not lead to agreement on a specific solution, accompanied by the assignment of personal responsibility and a deadline, is a problem that will come back over and over again, without resolution.
Practice this systematic method of dealing with a problem over and over until it becomes a habit of thinking. You will be amazed at how much more effective you become, and how much better your results will be using this method.
The Key To Victory and Success
In studying warfare and battles over the centuries, I have always been fascinated by the situations where a smaller force defeated a numerically superior force. In every case, what I discovered was that the numerically smaller force was far better organized, more methodical and more orderly in its plan of attack and execution than was the larger, more disorganized force.
By the same token, an ordinary person, with a system or recipe for problem solving, can run circles around highly intelligent or well educated people who throw themselves at their problems without a method or process for solving them.
These two methodologies, mindstorming and the systematic approach, give you a tremendous advantage in mastering the inevitable problems and difficulties of life.
Write It Down
Always be sure to think on paper. Write things down. There is something that happens between the brain and the hand when you write. You get a greater sense of clarity and understanding with regard to the issues involved. You think better. Your perception is sharper. You actually become smarter and more creative by the very act of writing everything down as you go along, and before you make a decision.
Play Down The Chessboard
One of the most powerful creative thinking exercises you can practice is called “Scenario Planning.” In scenario planning, you play down the chessboard of life and imagine what might happen sometime in the future.
Even though the future is largely unknowable, certain trends taking place today will continue into the future. Certain events taking place around you will affect these trends, if not interrupt them in different ways. Completely unexpected events will arise that will require that you change your plans completely.
Answer Two Questions
In scenario planning, you ask yourself two questions. First, “What are the three worst things that could possibly happen in the months or years ahead that would negatively affect my business or my personal life?”
Write them down. Be brutally honest with yourself. Refuse to wish or hope for the best. For example, imagine that your best customer went out of business or was unable to pay you for the products or services that you had sold to him. What would you do? How would you react? What steps could you take to guard against this eventuality?
Next, ask yourself, “What are the three best things that could possibly happen to me in the months and years ahead?”
With your answers to either of these questions, you can use mindstorming to prepare yourself for any eventuality. If it is a potential setback, ask yourself, “How could we guard against this setback?” Then generate 20 answers to this question.
If it is a possible opportunity, ask yourself, “How could we increase the likelihood of this opportunity taking place, or take advantage of this opportunity as it is today?” Write out 20 answers to this question, as well.
Each time you ask yourself one of these questions, like an electric spark, you will trigger ideas and insights. The more you think about these key questions, the more you will activate your superconscious mind to give you insights and flashes of inspiration that will enable you to seize opportunities or avoid dangers.
Develop Your Options
One of the most important parts of your personal philosophy should revolve around the development of options. The rule is, “You are only as free as your well developed alternatives.”
If your goal is to be happy, successful and free, you must have choices. There must be more than one thing that you can do, in every situation. You can never allow yourself to be trapped with only one course of action open to you.
From the time you take your first job, make your first investment or embark on any part of life, you should immediately begin to develop an alternative to that, if something should go wrong.
Develop Your Plan B
Frederick von Bismarck, the “Iron Chancellor” of 19th century Germany, was considered to be the finest statesmen of his age. He was able to juggle competing nations, principalities and powers against each other in the process of forming Germany into a unified national state. His political life was an endless process of negotiating, back and forth, winning and losing, time after time.
Bismarck was famous for always having a back up plan completely developed before he began negotiations on his main plan. This became known as a “Bismarck Plan,” a “Plan B.” You should always have a “Plan B” for the important parts of your business and personal life as well.
What is your Plan B? What is your backup plan if your current job, career, industry or course of action does not work out successfully? What is your backup plan if your current investments do not work out, or if your “best laid plans” fail? What are your alternatives? What would you do if you found yourself out on the street tomorrow, or in the position of having to start over?
The more options you have, the greater mental freedom you have, as well. The more alternatives you have thought through and developed, the greater power you will have in any situation. The more that you have developed different courses of action, in case the one you are following does not work out, the greater confidence and you will have. This is why one of the most important things you do throughout life is to increase the range of your “freedom of action.” Use your creativity to develop options and alternatives continually, no matter how well things are going at the moment.
Long Term Thinking
Your ultimate goal in your business and your career is to earn as much money as possible and to achieve financial independence. All profit, all financial success in our society comes from “adding value” of some kind. When you add value, you put yourself into a position to capture some of that value in the form of increased income, profit or dividends. This is the basic law of all market economics, and like most basic laws, it is unknown or misunderstood by most people working in our society today.
One of the questions you can ask in your mindstorming exercise is, “What can I do to increase my value to my customers today?” You might ask, “Who are my ideal customers? What can I do to attract more of my ideal customers into buying from me?”
Best of all, you should ask, “What would I have to do to deserve more of exactly the kind of customers that I want to have?” What could you do more of, or start doing, to be more deserving of having more of the customers you really want?
Add Value Continually
Always be looking for ways to use your creativity to add value by doing things faster, better, cheaper or easier in some way. Just as the word “deserve” comes from the Latin roots “de” and “servus” which mean “from service” you should always be looking for ways to deserve greater rewards from serving your customers better in some way.
In the final analysis, as a member of society, as a “player” in our economic system, your riches and rewards will come from your ability to serve other people better than your competitors. Use your intelligence and your creativity every single day to find ways to make yourself more valuable to your company, your industry and your world. This is the true hallmark of personal genius.
Unlock Your Inborn Creativity:
1. Select your most important goal, or biggest problem, and write it at the top of a sheet of paper as question. Then discipline yourself to generate 20 answers to that question, and implement one of those answers immediately.
2. Approach every problem systematically by defining it clearly, developing possible solutions, making a decision and then implementing the solution as soon as possible.
3. Think on paper. Write down every detail of a problem or goal and look for simple, practical ways to solve the problem or achieve the goal.
4. Identify the best and worst things that could happen to you in the months ahead. Determine what you could do to reduce the effects of the worst outcomes and maximize the benefits or likelihood of the best possible outcomes.
You are only as free as your options. Develop a plan B for every important area of your business and personal life.
