In previous posts I have explained How to write a decent book and How to Publish a decent book. Now I want to share the ‘prequel’ to those two events.

Creativity is a process of learning new things, and thinking about them, leaving them for a while and revisiting them later.

I’ve found an old doc with my very first blog posts, from 2007. I’ve realised that I have wanted to write about creativity for more than 15 years… I wrote other things in the following years, from leadership lessons from sports, to a blog on Autism and Technology I run for 4 years, and different thoughts on fostering creativity in a team (my team). But I needed a long incubation period before I delivered my book Join The Playful Revolution.

Here you can read some of those earlier posts, originally in Spanish. There is some ancient tech in there (and an update too).

It is never too late to create

Creativity is an attitude, rather than an aptitude. We are born with the ability to create and imagine, and if not it is enough to watch children play and draw, but it can hibernate when it is attacked by the virus of correctness, the great enemy of error, a fundamental element in the creative process.

Apparently, age, sex, or socio-cultural level are not obstacles to being creative. If there is a decisive factor in knowing who is creative and who is not, it is the degree of fear of failure. It is necessary to make mistakes many times before finding a valid result, and each mistake is part of the elimination process, that little voice that says ‘not that way’, and that makes us keep looking.

While it is true that age can diminish perception and memory skills, with age there is also usually more experience and cultural background that more than compensates for it. The good news is that creativity is trainable, there are specific techniques (e.g. brainstorming), numerous books and online resources, and it is also something we can practice daily in our usual activities: from trying a new route to work, varying a recipe or finding a way to hang a picture when we do not have a hammer… 

Attitude, ladies and gentlemen. Age, talent or lack of, are not excuses: If you want to you can, and now is the best time to start.

What I need to be creative

1.- An active and curious brain – it is the only essential thing. When we have to look for an alternative ingredient because our guests are coming for dinner in half an hour, and we have forgotten to buy the meat (on a Sunday, when the stores are not open, and our neighbors are on vacation…) Well, an idea is the only thing we need, but right now!

2.- Paper and pencil – the cheapest, most versatile and accessible technology, to remember that happy idea or to think on paper…

3.- A brick – out of the 20 possible uses of a brick… this one was a joke (they say that a sense of humor is for creative people)

4.- A computer – from writers to architects, musicians, visual artists, engineers, scientists… I think it goes without saying…

5.- The internet – as a source of information and as a tool for collaboration.

PDA for creatives (back in 2007)

A PDA, or Personal Digital Assistant, of today is a device with superior features to the first Digital Agendas from which they have derived, and even to those of the first personal computers. It is a handheld device managed by an operating system adapted to its characteristics, such as Palm SO, created by the first PDA manufacturer, Palm, or Windows CE, included in the so-called ‘Pocket PC’. Recently there is a version of Linux for PDAs.

Almost all data input and output is produced through its touch screen, which has been increasing in size and resolution since its inception. The development of handwriting recognition applications, such as those also seen in tablet PCs, has been quite crucial in this respect. At their heart are processors that allow them to work with complex data and multimedia material, and it is increasingly easy for them to communicate with each other and other devices.

An example of a typical mid-range PDA would have a 512 Mhz processor, card slots, Bluetooth, Wifi and the ability to connect other external devices such as a USB stick, keyboard, camera or GPS. A wide variety of applications can be installed which, in addition to the typical organizer and agenda functions, allow you to create and view data in the form of text (.doc, .pdf, etc.), spreadsheets, databases, images, videos, and music. With other applications you can create multimedia content, browse the Internet, view mail, draw, play games and a host of other activities. The premise is, if you can do it on a PC, you have to be able to do it on a PDA.

Some of the things that can be done with a PDA in the field of creativity, in addition to the more typical functions, could be the following:

 ∙ writing notes or ideas, by hand.

∙ making sketches and mind maps

∙ drawing and painting

∙ writing full texts

∙ take pictures

∙ retouching photos

∙ record audio

∙ play audio

∙ compose music

∙ record video

∙ play video

2022 (may) update:

Where you read PDA think ‘tablet’, and we probably can do all that and more. I own a 2018 iPad, with an Apple Pencil, and it is my favorite tool ever.

My top apps are the following:

∙ writing notes or ideas, by hand. – Paper

∙ making sketches and mind maps – Paper

∙ drawing and painting – Paper, Canva

∙ writing full texts – Google Documents

∙ retouching photos – Snapseed

∙ record audio – built in, GarageBand

∙ compose music – Garage Band

I hope you enjoyed a visit to the history of a book.

Remember to play!

The post How to write a book – incubation phase appeared first on Creative Sensei.

Here you can find the top five activities to guide your first steps activating your team creativity: improvisation, story dice, provocation, brain-writing and SCAMPER. These cover playful approaches to warmup the creative muscles, generate and expand disruptive ideas.

I have included them in my book Join The Playful Revolution – How To Bring Creativity and Play to the Workplace, where you can find some more detailed descriptions of some techniques such as brain-writing. You will also find a couple of bonus techniques not included in the book, for your eyes only. I hope you find these useful.

By the way, if you are looking at ways to facilitate group creativity in a remote setting, her you may find some useful information: Remote Team Creativity.

(Note: Some of the references in this article may contain affiliate links, which means if you buy the product you are supporting this project with a small commission at no cost for you).

Activity 1: Improvisation “Yes, and”

I borrowed this technique from improv comedy (Hough, 2011). A very important principle is that in improv comedy, they expect you to make your teammates look good. This, in exchange, builds trust. And it requires empathy too.

The technique I use basically consists of one participant starting to build a story with any statement. It can be something mundane, the first thing they did that morning, for example.

• Participant 1: “This morning, when I woke up, I did not want to get up because I felt terribly tired”

Then, the next participant continues by saying “Yes, and xxx”, and so on.

• Participant 2: “Yes and, I slammed the alarm clock across the room when it rang”
• Participant 3: “Yes and, because it was summer, I had left the window open”
• Participant 4: “Yes and, the alarm clock fell through the window all the way to the ground”

The last participant will say “Yes, and YYY”, but will try to close the story.

• Participant 5: “Yes and, I live on a second floor, and I heard somebody whining and cursing, so I switched the light off”

The whole point here is to build on your predecessor by adding to the story. This approach will neutralize the “Yes, but” attitude you may find when offering a new idea. The rule requires that you accept your partner’s proposition as is, and add value to it. No “But”, just “And”.

If you have created an initial story with a team, using the “Yes, and” framework, then you can challenge them with variations, depending on time availability:

• Retell the story in half the time, which will force you to leave things out.
• “I woke up very tired”
• “and, I slammed the clock”
• “and, the window was open”
• “and, the clock fell through”
• “and, nobody died”
• Retell the story to foreigners, or five-year-old children (which may require you to double up on expressivity). Do you want to try it?

Apart from the benefits of fostering collaboration, by active listening and communicating, this technique develops storytelling and creativity on the spot. To me it is one of the most complete of all.

If you do this periodically, you may find that you interiorize the principles and it will transfer to how you receive everyone else’s idea in a day-to-day context. This is the very essence of a safe environment to innovate. It is also cheap, easy and fun.

Activity 2: Story dice for everything

You can use improv as an icebreaker on its own, and in combination with story dice, using the dice images as a story prompt.

I first came across story dice when looking at games and agile retrospectives. Many people were using Rory Story Cubes, a set of nine dice with different icons in them, representing basic concepts (foot, face, light bulb, etc). There are alternatives of different brands, and you can make your own with permanent markers over blank dice, or DIY paper dice too. Dave Birss has created a free beautifully designed online set for remote sessions, that lets you choose between five or nine dice.

Teams are using story dice in retrospectives, when talking about the past project or sprint, but also for planning the next stage or the future of the team. You can draw some inspiration from Sumit Sethi’s approach that he shared in a Linkedin post:

• People take turns rolling four normal dice. If they get a six, they get to roll the story dice.
• The storyteller throws all nine dice from the set and has to use at least five to tell their story. They will share their life during the project or sprint, and it can be positive or about something that needs improvement, or both.
• They play until everyone has told a story.

Although it worked for Sumit’s team, many people may be caught by surprise the first time. Using them playfully first, as an icebreaker, makes everyone familiar with the mechanics of the dice and storytelling. Later they can then focus on the project stories when using them in a retrospective.

Some dice based icebreakers could be:

• Throw the dice and pick one to share some anecdote from your childhood. This allows teams to get familiar with visual metaphors and stories, as well as getting to know each other.
• In groups of three, throw three dice and each person will tell a story based on the image. Person One, will tell the beginning, Person Two, will continue it, and Person Three will finish it. The challenge is linking the image to the overall story. This is also performed using the “Yes, and” approach. It builds listening and creativity, and makes for fun stories without fear.
• The whole team tells a story with one dice each. You need to divide the group in three sections, so section one tells the beginning, section two, the middle, and section three, the end. In this case, you are creating a collective story, with a very diverse pool of storytellers. This exercise is basically the improv exercise mentioned earlier, but using the randomness of the dice to make it even more challenging (and fun).

This is a combined exercise that develops creativity, story-telling, empathy, collaboration and visual language skills. If you were to use only one practical activity from this book, this should be it.

Activity 3: Provocation

Provocation is a technique very well documented by Edward de Bono, with several variations. My favorite one is to take a regular and true statement, and transform it into something radical, exaggerated, inverted or impossible: i.e., regular statement “companies have employees” → provocation “a company without employees” (I know, there are several types, it is just an example).

Anouk Suñer-Rabaud, in the course material of Creative Thinking at Universidad Oberta de Cataluña, suggests other examples: “Skates are hammered on the floor”, “students teach the teacher.” You then get these statements to generate ideas that will make the statement true. What can we create/do for that statement to be true? i.e. following the example “a company without employees” –> “a company that hires freelancers”.

Instead of having to generate hundred of ideas in order to get the obvious ones out of the way, these provocations open more original paths, short-cutting the process a little.

You can use this technique for your individual thinking, but it can be introduced right before any ideation session to get people in disruptive mode. It is a good primer to take people out of their standard way of thinking.

Activity 4: Brainwriting

Let’s assume that you know the essence of brainstorming (that is: a group of people calling out ideas, while someone is taking notes, and yes, you are expected to suspend judgement…). The technique is credited to Alex Osborn. This format tends to favor the most vocal types during the idea generation phase. Also, when it is time to vote, if done on sight, there might be some pressure to vote for the idea of the boss or the dominant voices.

To save the hassle, and have everyone be engaged and contributing, you can run a quick brain-writing session instead:

• Your participants should be equipped with sticky notes and thick, black permanent markers.
• They need to be instructed to write one idea per sticky note and in capital letters.
• You set the timer up (three to five minutes), get everyone ready, and go.
• They collect their sticky notes after time is up, and put them up on the wall.
• Now you give them time to organize, take away duplicates, categorize.
• And finally, you give them a few dots to vote for their favorite ideas. For 3-6 participants, 3 dots per person would be enough, maybe 4-5 if they are 8-10 participants.

And all can be done in silence.

This technique evens up the participation. You get lots of ideas in a very short period of time, and there is no time wasted arguing about meaningless points. You also obtain a rough evaluation /selection of ideas. There are more sophisticated techniques to evaluate ideas, like an impact/viability matrix (or more like return/costs in the business world) but, depending on context, you get a quick and dirty first set of promising ideas.

Now, this technique works at any level of the hierarchy. I know it is a speedy process and some ideas or concepts might benefit from a little further discussion. Your participants may need that time, so you may consider planning your session with a little ‘free time’ for that spontaneous discussion to take place. Alternatively, just as you voted on preferred ideas, you may let people vote on ideas they would like to discuss further, and give them time to do just that.

Activity 5: SCAMPER

When you do a quick brain-writing or brainstorming session, you first go after the low hanging fruit. Since there is some time pressure, you suggest the first things that come to mind. Invariably, those tend to be the ideas that are most obvious. The more you dig, the more variety you find. That is why originality is a numbers game: the more ideas, the most likelihood of original thinking.

SCAMPER is an acronym created by Bob Eberle that summarizes certain actions used in the technique: substitute, combine, adapt, modify, put to another use, eliminate, reverse.

This technique starts with a product or idea and explores it systematically, by going over every action, with several questions, and coming up with several answers. For example, if we start with a frying pan:

• Substitute. What can I substitute? The handle, the frying side, the screw that keeps them together… What do I substitute if for? The handle, with a clamp (something to hold it with), the frying side, with a metallic lid.
• Combine. What can I combine it with? Maybe an attached stove or oil dispenser.
• Adapt. How can I adapt it? Vertical handle for very small kitchens.
• Modify. What can I modify or magnify? Changing the shape to make star-shaped fried eggs…or make it extensible.
• Put to another use. Use it to add some weight on top of a sandwich that is on another pan.
• Eliminate. What can you remove? The handle. By making sure the exterior always remains cold, you can pick it up by hand.
• Reverse. What can you invert or reorder? First thought: using the handle to heat things up… that is, making a handle that can contain liquid and is fire resistant, so you can heat the handle up.

With this systematic approach, we are generating ideas on demand (deliberate creativity), regardless of our own perceived sense of creative skill. It is a creative confidence builder, and a good training exercise. But if we start from an initial provocation round, people may loosen up a bit and become more adventurous in their propositions. Of course, being a tool, it is not compulsory to use all the verbs (all the steps described by the acronym), but a little full practice may be helpful at the beginning.

This technique is both suited to individuals and teams, and mixes very well with provocation.

BONUS 1 : Teamstorming

Juan Prego, author of the book “Teamstorming”, gives his own touch to systematic group-storming. In the book he provides a unique blueprint with up to six rounds, generating ideas individually, using sticky notes and the rule “one idea in one sticky note”. In every round, each participant moves to another section of the wall and starts from the sticky notes that the earlier participant left there. It follows some of the actions of SCAMPER, but the book gives you the blueprint of the whole session, which also includes a few idea evaluation steps.

I have facilitated a session like this with a small group of 4 business development people, who generated more than 100 ideas in 15 minutes. You need at least 3 people to make it work, but it is a format that can be easily scaled up. I have run a session with more than 30 people and it went smoothly.

In his book, Juan moves from ideation to an evaluation stage. The first step involves voting for the favorite ideas, if there are too many. Then, the selected ones are placed on a matrix according to their level of originality and applicability. Aiming to be disruptive, he adds a step where the most original ideas that are least applicable get a little think through to make them applicable. You ask “How can we make this possible?”. Finally, depending on the goal, you select an area of the matrix to take action on, more evolutive or disruptive.

BONUS 2: Six thinking hats

The technique Six Thinking Hats was developed by Edward de Bono in a book by the same name and it has been applied to corporate meetings all over the world. Although it can also be used for generating ideas, I find it specially useful to enhance the winning propositions. I would use it after the core of the ideation has taken place and you have selected a small set of winning ideas. Then you apply this technique to each and everyone of the finalists to enrich the information and challenge potential caveats.

The technique involves the team sequentially discussing the idea focusing in different aspects, according to a given hat color they are wearing (figuratively, or literally):

• White: is the hat of the facts, data and information. You may want to add factual information you have about the idea, or voice concerns about the data you don´t yet have. It refers to what you know.
• Red: is the hat of feelings and emotions. You empathize with the possible recipient of the idea, or how it will make you feel executing it. It refers to what you/or the user feel.
• Green: is the hat of the new ideas. With this hat, you may propose or enumerate the most disruptive ideas of the ideation phase. If you are using the technique as ‘standalone’, then this is brainstorming time.
• Black: this is the negative hat. You find everything that is wrong with the idea. However, instead of dwelling in it, you have to tweak the idea to overcome the cons. This is a critical hat to make a better case for the idea, so I perceive it as a positive contribution in the process.
• Yellow: this is the positive hat. You find all the benefits of the idea, assuming everything will go well. With this hat, you find the core value proposition for the idea.
• Blue: is a big picture and organizational hat. On one hand, it means to manage the session, make sure you go through all points, everyone contributes, but also, that it makes sense, that the final ‘proposal’ includes all parts.

You can use it individually, as a systematic evaluation tool or in teams. When in teams, you can either assign everyone a different hat, and have a turn to express their views, or you can get the whole team visit each hat and contributing to that perspective. The latter will have a lot of educational value, since we know who are the always optimistic and the eternal critic.

Books & resources

Thinkertoys by Michael Michalko

Gamestorming, by Sunny Gray

Lateral Thinking Edward de Bono

The Improvisation Edge: Secrets to Building Trust and Radical Collaboration at Work by Karen Houghes (2011)

Teamstorming by Juan Prego – 2018 –

Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono

Online Story Dice by Dave Birss

Rory Story Cubes –

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Creativity is a talent with which all people are born and that some of us have something rusty. To activate it, in addition to using creative techniques, we can play games, modify our environment and drink beer in a very specific way.

Apart from the creative materials, I have been able to experiment with activities and board games that serve to develop empathy, collaborations, storytelling, visual language and creativity (divergent thinking in particular). These skills are the necessary pillars to work optimally in innovation processes such as design thinking , and it is necessary to activate them systematically.The key in all these initiatives is to look for the loopholes through which we can operate, instead of looking at what other people are doing and lamenting that we can’t. If we can’t have a creative room, let’s have a creative box with the same philosophy and bring it to the meeting rooms. And now that we can’t have face-to-face meetings, let’s take them to virtual spaces such as collaborative whiteboards (Mural or Miro type).

With these playful activities we not only increase the possibilities of innovating, but those who participate know each other better, feel better and are activated, so they are also more productive and productive; and if you find yourself obliged to work remotely, then you need to find the corresponding alternatives, even if they are not identical. The approach is “How could I…?” applied to the creative process.

How beer can make you more creative

Creative techniques are not enough. Creative processes are not enough. I have been able to see it live and direct countless times. If you put any ten people in a room and brainstorm ideas, I could predict how original they would be, based on their profiles. If they all look alike, have the same seniority, training and tasks…, it is likely that their proposals are limited to a similar scope, and this does not change in the duration of a one-hour session, or a design thinking process .

The brain generates new ideas by combining elements. If the pieces you have are similar, you will be able to find fewer combinations than if they are numerous and varied. In other words, the more experiences, data, knowledge and insights you have, the more combinations are possible and therefore the more original your ideas can be.

For example, so as not to have to go very far, and within your usual routine –so that it doesn’t take you time–, the next time you go out for a beer, have a drink or have a family reunion, try something different. Whether the first beer is of another brand than usual, or the wine, the water, the starters, the main course or the dessert, it doesn’t matter. “Feed” your curiosity. It can work with new readings, music and walk routes.

If you get in the habit of trying new things every day or every week, you will be giving your neurons new information to process and a new pattern to match. As a personal recommendation, make sure that these new things are legal and do not endanger your personal integrity or that of others!

Resilience needs creativity

For years I have been clear that the world needs a lot of creativity to solve global problems. Now, in addition, we are in a difficult moment for many people and it is time to reinvent themselves at full speed, as individuals and as companies.

In the latest Linkedin Learning 2021 report, resilience takes first place for the most important skill to develop this year. In the text they quote Gemma Leigh Roberts, who explains it this way: “Improving resilience is about creating your advantage at work. […] It’s not just about learning how to cope exceptionally well with challenges, but also learning how to thrive and reach your full potential.”

In other words, resilience is our ability to withstand the storm and reinvent ourselves. Creativity is the basic skill to be able to do it and, play, the safest context to develop it.

Reference

Article first published here:

PINO, Begoña. «Creatividad: es momento de la ludorrevolución (#playfulrevolution)». COMeIN [en línea], junio 2021, no. 112. ISSN: 1696-3296. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7238/c.n112.2145

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The term builds on the concept of Minimum Effective Dose made popular by Tim Ferriss when addressing whatever treatment or procedure: it refers to the least amount of effort, amount, including length of time, necessary to achieve a desired goal. It can be applied to a health treatment, a fitness goal and the like.

Before Tim Ferriss, I had been familiar with Pareto’s Principle, which more or less states that 20% of your efforts will yield 80% of the results. I applied it to everything from weight training to specific technical training when I was doing competitive sports. Even to work related projects… trying to provide value early on the process and maybe move onto another project when that 80% result was reached.

Regarding creativity, when I had my son, for the first few years I had little free time between full time job, commuting and family. Although I love photography and video, I didn´t have time for video, nor for too much photography. I managed to run a personal project #lunchbreak which was a series of individual portrait sessions of nine of my work colleagues, over lunch time, in a spot near the office. It spanned over 18 months since it was hard to get organised, with availability and the like. In total, less than 20 hours of work (more or less). The point is that I found the cracks in my busy schedule to find time for a creative endeavour.

Some time later, I was still yearning for something else… and I got it thanks to a mobile phone and instagram. I started an ongoing minimal project #onmywaytowork where the cracks on my schedule was my commuting to and from work. I would shoot a picture to something that grab my attention during my trip, edit very quickly and upload it to instagram, sometimes in less than a minute. I had found my photographic minimum creative output.

Similarly I have found different minimum creative outputs in other domains:

• Drawing: icons, drawing patterns in a small sticky note
• Video: a 15’’ tiktok clip
• Writing: free haiku, a tweet
• Music: a musical phrase on a keyboard or a diy fretless one string guitar (didley bow)

The whole point is that they take a minute or less, very little gear and minimal skill. At this level, we are not aiming at quality, but getting started, gaining creative confidence, expanding our comfort zone, feeding our brain by learning skills from zero, acquiring the habit to be creative… Of course, if you already have some skill, maybe the benefit is in creating a body of work to show for all your creative thinking.

Some times I think that creativity is the tangible of our imagination, what I called creative thinking. Never mind the terms, just go and make something for the fun of it. And keep doing it.

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I have set up the #1minutecreativechallenge to take you from zero to 1 in your creativity quotient, be that first level based on developing creative confidence or creative habit.

Why?

Creative confidence is a necessary ingredient to use the creative superpowers we are all born with. Children have both, the superpower and the conviction they have it (or, more like, a complete disregard about such a thing), they just create all the time. Adults have a life long history of a) not using their creativity and b) believing they don´t have it.

So, instead of showing you research that proves you wrong, I just want you to get to it, one minute at a time, because it is all it takes to create the Minimum Creative Output. If you are ready to commit a total of 21 minutes of your time, (in small 1 minute units), you will have a body of work of 21 small pieces to prove it to yourself. Your first creative portfolio.

Ok, I’m not talking about quality or super-original work, just a first small stretch of your creative mind. Just a proof and the first building block of your creative confidence. After that, there will be bigger challenges to take you further in your creative path if you choose to do so.

Then, there is a creative habit you need to incorporate to your day if you want to become more creative. The challenge is setup for 21 days because according to experts, this is the minimum amount of days it may take to acquire a new habit. And it is enough to test it, and to start transforming your mindset. In sports, they normally talk about 6 weeks to see fitness changes, and I would advise you to keep going for 6 weeks if we take creativity as a muscle that needs training. However, the purpose of the challenge is to take you from zero to 1 in a 0-10 creativity scale, and 21 days is a smaller and more achievable commitment.

The #1minutecreativechallenge

1. Choose one creative domain: writing, drawing, photography, cooking, dancing (or any other)
2. Choose one specific output for your chosen domain. Here are some ideas (but you can define your own):
   • Writing:
     • Write an original thought about a topic you are passionate about (tweet size)
     • Write a haiku – a japanese poetry form composed of three lines of 5, 7 and 5 syllabae respectivelly (research for more details)
   • Drawing:
     • Draw small icons of concepts you talk about all the time. You can google the word + icon and then do a freehand version of it, but the list has to be relevant to your work or interests
     • Listen to some music and doodle around it, for 1 minute. You can video record it, or take a snapshot after you have done it.
   • Photography: 
     • choose a theme of your interest and take a picture a day. No need to edit it.
     • Take a picture of whatever grabs your attention during your way to work, school or other daily journey. (see my instagram account @creativesenseiway #onmywaytowork for inspiration)
   • Cooking: 
     • Cook dinner (or lunch, or whatever) with up to 5 ingredients you already have and take a picture.
   • Dancing:
     • Play some music and start dancing. You may play the same music every time, but need to move differently. don´t worry about cool movements, choreagraphy or the like… funny movements will cover the goal, as long as they are different than previous ones. Video record (this is good for tiktok, but take a snapshot if you are shy)
3. Register your output:
   • Take a snapshot, video, or the like, so you have a permanent record of you output. Decide on one formula and stick with it
4. Share it daily in social media (at least in one of these: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok) with the hashtags #1minutecreativechallenge and #21dayscreativehabitchallenge. 
5. After you 21 days (you may skip a day or two every now and again, but make sure you create 21 items),
   • you will have completed the challenge, and I’m sure you will feel a little more creative -even if just a tiny bit.
   • This is the time to look at your body of work, put it together in one screencapture or gallery of some sort and share it with the above hastags plus #6Bcreatives.
   • You are now part of a quest to increase the global creative quotient.
6. What now? 
   • Seek out new challenges to keep developing your creative superpowers
   • Share the challenge with others you think may benefit from it, and encourage them to give it a chance. Become a Creative ‘Senpai’ (the senior student who teaches others)

Now go and use your creative superpowers!

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I will be sharing everything I know and learn on the way to help anyone interested to increase their creativity. That involves acquiring creative confident, creative mindset, creative habit, and creative pursuits. Together with related information I will be setting up challenges to get people from zero to 1, and then move forward on their Creative Sensei Way.  A Sensei is a master, and I am convinced we are born with the necessary abilities to become a creative master.

So, how will I know I have succeeded? Well, according to current population, I have set an arbitrary number of 6 Billion (6.000.000.000) people in order to consider my quest a success. By measuring up the number of people who use this hashtag #6Bcreative, which is to be used only once by an individual, when they complete at least one of the creative challenges I am going to put out.

Yes I know it is very ambitious and not very realistic. My first goal is roughly… get the first 6 :) I’m aware I will not be able to achieve this on my own, so I ask everyone with a circle of influence on and offline, to join me on this quest, and make yourselves known to me either by following me on social media or adding #6Bcreativesenpai to your posts… Although I would rather know who you are by messaging :)

1. The very first challenge is about gaining creative confidence, by taking one minute a day for 21 days to create something minimal and sharing it with the hashtag #1minutecreativechallenge.

Credits (and sources of inspiration):

• I was inspire to go on a long term quest by an interview of Marie Forleo with Chris Guillebeau titled “The secret to more meaning and adventure”
• I decided to make the goal uber-unrealistc after listening to Vishen Lakhiani’s Mindvalley podcast titled “Winners are not realistic”

Now go and use your creative superpowers!!

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