Introduction: Creativity Rules by Tina Seelig
I was led to reread Creativity Rules: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and into the World by Tina Seelig. I read it a few years ago, but didn’t focus on taking good notes. Twice in a week I had the sense I needed to read this book and focus on what the author is saying.
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In introducing Creativity Rules, Seelig talks about people not being able to define creativity and many people use the cliche “thinking outside the box.” When I think about it, she’s exactly right.
“Imagination leads to creativity.
Creativity leads to innovation.
Innovation leads to entrepreneurship.”
The Invention Cycle is moving from imagination to entrepreneurship.
“Imagination is envisioning things that do not exist.
Creativity is applying imagination to address a challenge.
Innovation is applying creativity to generate unique solutions.
Entrepreneurship is applying innovation, scaling ideas, and thereby inspiring others’ imagination.”
To excel at imagination, you have to be curious and remove the boxes you place yourself in. Travel, read, eat different cuisines, listen to music and watch films. Become interested in what’s going on around you. Imagination requires engagement and envisioning alternatives.
Your output depends on your input. Years ago, while studying computer science, we learned Garbage In, Garbage Out and that has stayed with me all those years.
Use your creativity to apply your imagination to solve problems and challenges. It requires motivation and experimentation to address a challenge. Act on your creative ideas. Creative ideas must have value. They are new to you, but not necessarily new to the world.
Innovation applies creativity to generate unique solutions. Innovative ideas are unique to the world. You use fresh lenses to view the world. And you reframe situations. It’s important to connect disparate ideas across disciplines. When you do this, you identify unique opportunities.
Entrepreneurship applies innovation to scale unique ideas, inspiring others’ imagination. It also requires persistence.
“An entrepreneurial spirit infects others, leading to wave upon wave of imagination, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship.”
Summary of Creativity Rules by Tina Seelig
When we glimpse at something, we do not see everything. It’s important to look and see, listen and hear, and touch and feel because you’ll notice patterns and opportunities. Our actions lead to our passion. Your passion grows from engagement.
“The more experience you have with a person, a profession, or a problem, the more passionate and engaged you become.”
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“Discovery is predicated on curiosity. The more curious you are, the more willing you will be to engage in each new experience. The easiest way to tap into your natural curiosity is by asking questions.”
Answering your own questions fuels curiosity, imagination, and confidence. Invent your future. Expose yourself to different situations so you can build your knowledge and experience. When you get a job, you’re also given the keys to the building. Anything can be engaging if you approach it with curiosity.
Engagement is the first step to imagination. Immerse yourself and be curious, which leads to insights and opportunities hidden in plain sight.
Everyone can come up with wildly imaginative ideas. A robust imagination sets the stage for extraordinary achievements.
“This is critically important: the boundaries you define are self-imposed, and are limited by what you imagine for yourself. Whether you are running a race, a political campaign, or a company, the vision you have for yourself defines what you can accomplish. This is true whether your vision is modest or monumental. Imagination sets the stage for your journey.”
Imagine your future and envision the obstacles you’ll have to overcome. If you’re visualizing a future, along with the outcome, also visualize what you have to overcome to achieve it.
If you’re stretching yourself to play on a larger stage, acknowledge you don’t know everything and ask for help. You build confidence from experience.
Experiment to find solutions.
There are three keys to motivation, according to Daniel Pink. They’re autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Autonomy refers to the freedom to choose what to do, how to do it, and with whom to do it. Mastery involves the opportunity to succeed at challenging tasks that aren't so hard that they frustrate. The purpose of a person's life provides them with the opportunity to work on something that is important to them.
What’s the meaning and impact of what you do? What’s your intrinsic motivation for doing what you do? Your motivations influence everything you do. Successful entrepreneurs have a clear vision for their venture and are able to motivate others to work with them to achieve these goals.
We have to create meaning in our lives.
Apply your imagination to address a challenge, and leverage your motivation to begin experimentation. That’s what creativity is about. Do pre-mortems to imagine what will happen in the future with your projects. When you anticipate the likely barriers and obstacles you’ll face, you can work out the kinks. Lay a solid foundation for success.
Move beyond imagination to envision possibilities to creativity, where you begin finding solutions. Experimentation uncovers a wealth of alternatives so that you can evaluate those options.
Build up imagination and creativity to innovate to generate unique ideas.
Choosing Opportunities
When you face many opportunities, how do you choose? Creativity Rules provides a process.
- Determine what matters to you now: What are your objectives? Do you want to increase your impact, earning potential, or circle of friends? Or something else?
- Be honest about how much time each commitment will take: Things often take longer than you think.
- Project yourself into the future: Anticipate how much time you’ll really have.
- Give yourself time to decide: Sit with the opportunity to see how it ages. Don’t be pressured to say yes or no.
- Look at opportunities in a larger context: What if you batched them for a specific period? Which ones are valuable?
- Get input from other people: Ask a trusted friend about an opportunity. Let them help you evaluate opportunities.
- Trust opportunities will continue to flow: You may fear if you turn down an opportunity, you’ll stop getting them. That’s not the case.
Mindfulness
Monitor what you spend your time doing and what you think about. Do this with intention. Your attention and thoughts are your most valuable assets. Use them well.
When in a state of mindfulness, you’re restful, happy, alert, and awake.
If you want to be more productive, partition your day into project periods.
Choose the right things to focus on.
Reframing
You have the power to change your frame of reference. The frames you use are influenced by experiences, current circumstances, and your state of mind. When you understand this, you can shift those frames to reveal important insights. Every day we place a frame around other people’s actions. And we’re often wrong.
Understand how your frame of reference allows you to see challenges and opportunities. When you shift your frame, you unlock fresh ideas. A crisis is an opening to an opportunity.
Creative ideas are evolutionary, while innovation ideas are revolutionary. You can become flexible in your thinking.
To reframe how you see things, examine and question your assumptions.You can reframe a problem by coming up with the most stupid solution. How can you make the stupid solution a reality?
Entrepreneurship
You can accomplish a lot more with less. By taking small steps you can build mental stamina. Come up with 100 solutions to a problem you have. It sounds like a daunting task, but the more ideas you come up with, the better they become. It’s hard work to generate unique solutions.
“Grit is also a huge predictor of entrepreneurial success. Bringing a bold new idea to life exposes endless near-death experiences for the idea, and only those innovators with long-term dedication are able to thrive under such circumstances.”
Leverage the resources around you to do great things. Bringing your ideas to life requires persistence. It takes mental and physical grit to set goals, focus on a task for a long time, and overcome obstacles along the way. You have to replenish your energy so you don’t burnout.
Inspire
To magnify your impact, inspire others to help you.
“Multipliers are those who attract terrific talent by creating an environment that motivates others to do their best work. They do this by providing bold challenges that stretch others’ imagination, creating a culture of constructive debate, and giving ownership and credit to those who contribute. This collection of behaviors leads to vastly increased morale and motivation and generates a quantum leap in output.”
Tell an interesting story that captures your vision. Those stories motivate others to join you. We walk around with the story of our life and that influences how we engage with others.
Conclusion: Creativity Rules by Tina Seelig
Creativity Rules by Tina Seelig is a guide on how to unlock your creative potential and turn your ideas into reality. Through clear definitions of imagination, creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship, Tina provides readers with the tools and strategies needed to take risks, identify opportunities, and develop creative solutions.
Readers can understand their own creative potential and learn how to take the steps to turn their ideas into real results. With this book, Tina Seelig provides readers with the tools they need to make their dreams a reality.
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