creativethinking Tag

How NOT to have what you want

A simple mind hack that to help you start flowing with ideas is to switch things upside down (or inside out) and ask the question again with that new “negative” perspective.

Rather than asking yourself “How can I finish all what I need to do this week on time?”, simply say “How can I make sure that I get nothing done this week?”.

List all the ways that answers this flip question. From sleeping all night and taking multiple naps, to making sure you don’t delegate a single things to not prioritizing any task.

Then, one by one, convert those ideas into your current situation and see how you can figure things out with this new perspective in the background. How can you really finish everything on time? Do you have to finish them all?

we default to negative thinking by nature. We immediately find faults in others’ ideas and we can see why things will not work out, because, we tell ourselves, we are experts and we have tried something similar before, and it didn’t work out. So this is how we use this negative thinking to our advantage. You’ll see that your brain will have no problem whatsoever thinking of ways that things will not work. Let it do its magic.

Here’s another example with the new question in place:  

How can you make sure you offer the worst customer service ever possible? What are all the ways you need to do in order to drive customers away?

Go.

Mavericks Masterclass (4)

Two types of ideas ..

According to “Frans Johansson” in his book “The Medici Effect”, there are two types of ideas: directional and intersectional.  

Directional ideas improve products in predictable steps and have well-defined dimensions: increasing efficiency, discovering new uses, or benchmarking policies and processes that fit in other departments, companies, or countries. The goal is to refine and adjust to make the idea fit its new context.

Intersectional ideas change in leaps and new directions. They live on the edge of two ore more fields (fields meaning disciplines, domains, or cultures). They do not require as much expertise in one domain as much as they need an expert in the process of pollinating and connecting the dots. “They can involve the design of a large department store or the topic of a novella; they can include a special effect technique or the product development for a multinational corporation”. 

Working at the intersectional level means working at the edge of innovation. That’s where it lives. That’s where you need to be when you’re ready to make a leap. To get there, find out first where do YOU live, and where is your intersection mirage. Then, get on board and connected the “unseen” dots.

~ Writing from the intersection,

Randah p.s. On January 24th we’re running our Mavericks Masterclass again. Join other intrapreneurs and corporate innovators on this three-hour intervention to find out more about your own creative thinking style and learn ways to facilitate connecting the dots.  Apply today

Forced marriage made creative

If by now your creativity is embedded in your way of seeing things, perhaps you’re ready to step up your game and start blending ideas from different, unrelated disciplines to help morph the into new creatures.

Call it forced marriage of ideas if you have to. 

Step into the intersection of in-between fields.

Break down associative barriers.

Experience how the number of idea combinations increases beyond any single area.

The explosion of concepts at the intersection is what makes it possible for innovators to produce so many remarkable ideas. It gives an incredible advantage to be literally and figuratively at the edge of things.

The next time you’re about to learn from an example, do a benchmark, or try to re-think a process, find the best in the world from as far an industry as the one you’re dealing with. Learn their context and how they thought through the challenge. Then force a connection between what they experienced and what you have. An idea explosion awaits.

You just stepped into the innovation intersection.

Welcome to 2021.

Two young men smiling as they build a tower out of various office supplies.

What experiences do you want to have next?

It’s easy for us to have goals and plan for them. But how many of your goals are experience-based?

Same process applies.

Start with the end in mind.

Visualize objects, concepts, systems, groups and processes as you plan your next successful creative achievement. Ensure richness of imagery you create; varied, strong, vivid, lively and intense images that help you feel your successful future now, experiencing what you hope to feel then. Create a picture that brings your full senses into action. Illustrate in front of you as your hand coordinates with your mind and your third eye vision.

Scribe or draw it. Play around with colored pens to highlight connections of the parts, or even use different types of markers to emphasize importance. See what speaks to you the loudest.

When you have decided on the direction you’re moving towards, figure out the experiences you wish to engage with.

What roads do you take? Are you hiking or sailing? Do you prefer to travel alone and fast or with others and far? Do you collect things or you connect them instead?

These are your experience decision principles. You consult them every time you’re faced with conflicting signs for roads ahead.

There are no good or bad choices. Only good or bad for you.

That’s why many people miss out on happiness and waste their energy choosing the roads without much planning. To avoid this, align your intentions with your compass, write them down in a journal and then embrace your experiences will full heart and mind.

To happiness and beyond,

Randah

The status quo does not adjust unless we adjust it.

Sometimes, that’s all what’s needed: the adjusting part.

We easily fall into inertia and don’t feel the need to be provocative. To question the status quo and re-create it when necessary. If we don’t do this often, we risk using outdated assumptions and flawed conclusions. 

Provocation has had a bad reputation for the longest time. A highly versatile, yet misunderstood, expression. We’ve always assumed that it needs to be big, loud or confronting. We never consider it when it translates into small regular changes to move up status.

Former Stanford professor and educator Henry B. Eyring explains, “My experience has taught me this about how people and organizations improve: the best place to look is for small changes we could make in the things we do often. There is power in steadiness and repetition.”

Small changes.

Like the 15 minutes that kickstarts your day or the few breather moments you need before a call to align your thoughts with your actions. Think Small. What else do you do almost every single day that you never thought about before?

Trace your everyday work life and see where you spend the majority of your thinking time. Where?  with who? and doing what? Design a routine that enshrines what is important, making execution almost effortless.

Make “imagination at work” the default position.

It won’t be easy at first. But once you’ve considered it, you’ll wonder why haven’t you don this ages ago?  

You’re welcome 😊

Randah

Randah Taher as a 7 year old child posing

What’s the song in your head?

Imagine you’re driving the car, decided to turn on the radio to a new station you haven’t tried before. Suddenly, a childhood favorite song comes on.

The smile on your face.

The images of long-ago memories, oh so present.

You arrived at your destination, but your song is not over yet.

You’ll do one of the following:

1          Stay in the car. listen till the end. Smile ear to ear.

2          Continue to drive in circles. You’ll find parking on the other side. This moment is yours.

3          Record a note to self: download the song, find that old album. 

4          Get out of the car and hum the song for the rest of the day.

And the smile doesn’t leave your face for a while.

What if you realized that this happy serendipity moment can be designed and replicated?

How can you delight in small things? Make joy part of life rather than an outcome to reach at the end of the day or year?

What would your elementary and high school friends suggest you do for fun? (forget about the adults, their options are boring)

Listen to your inner child. The wisest of them all.

#IAmAMaverick

Randah

p.s. I’m curious, which option did you pick from the four above? What else would you do to keep that memory-filled song in your head just a little longer?

Come to my rehearsal.

I truly value the rehearsals way more than the performance of a show.

I feel the rehearsals are made for us, by us. 

We get into the element of “flow” as raw as it gets. 

We focus on being fully present: on elevating our skills to the next level.

We try to find the connection between us.

We build bridges fast.

It’s about out-performing ourselves. 

The final show is for a paid or unpaid audience. We merely showcase the result of our fascination with the whole experience we created backstage. We become externally motivated to please them, to give them a simple lick of the amazing cake we devoured while rehearsing. 

They missed the whole show already. 

So, keep on improving your skills as you work. Approach any activity as a game and it becomes more diverting, just like a rehearsal. Experiment with different approaches, increase the challenge or play with sequence with others.

There’s magic in the rehearsals.

Can you feel it?   

~ Randah

man smelling a box in the office

What does ‘smell’ remind you of?

Does the smell of coffee tell your brain that your day has just started and it needs to reboot?

Do you instantly imagine you’re in a vacation when the smell of the chlorine reminds you of your childhood days by the swimming pool?  

Do you salivate when the smell of freshly baked bread surrounds you?

The reaction you get from any sort of smell does not come from thinking deliberately about past experiences associated with that smell. The part of the brain that analyzes your nose-sent messages is close to the limbic system. That primitive brain that deals with emotions, moods and memory.

No wonder why smells are richly supplied with emotional significance and they can make us instantly happy, or extremely annoyed.

People have used aromatherapy to treat the unwell. The essential oil perfumes pass over the nerve cells in the nasal passage and a message is sent to the brain.

Although you cannot always be physically comfortable at the office, you can still treat this basic part of your brain with different types of smells tucked into your desk.

Lavender will ease your anxiety before that big meeting and cinnamon may help improve performance and memory tasks.  Rosemary could improve brain function and eases stress while cedarwood could enhance your concentration.

You already have a snack drawer (we know your secret).  

It’s time for a smelling corner. Bring to work different smell elements to brighten your mood and enhance your focus at work. Ask your each member of your team to bring one smell elements and create a smell library to be used as needed.   

(sniff)

~Randah