Home for the Holidays

What's your travel schedule been looking like?  Are you insanely scurrying from city to city, country to country in a wild map dance across the globe?  This year, why not stay home for the holidays?

I've been living my new core value of when you go shopping - why not go shopping loco!  That means this year I'm not going to do my shopping at the mall.  I'm going to Ballard, right in my own hood where I know I can find all the right kinds of unique, local made gifts.

Like at Damsalfly.  Here I found the best prices for groovy boutique items.  I took my friend Scott in there and said "Pick out anything you want."  Of course this is a women's boutique shop and there's only one men's rack, but I knew that anything he found for his birthday present would cost around $50.  So it was.

Or how about Ella Mon?  Now here is a women's boutique shop that carries Farinaz, one of my favorite local designers.  AND they happened to have a sale rack on the day I went inside.  I found a tux jacket for Julie that is to die for.  It was a bargain.  The women that work there are incredibly helpful, kind, patient.  Go there.

If you want to get your hair cut for a great price, there's Rudy's.  If you are hungry there's Bastille or any number of great restaurants.  On Ballard Avenue, you can find/have tea, weird toys, stoves, green materials, new and used clothing...up and down the street.

It's all in that one little, NYC style hood.  But it's not just Ballard, find out what your neighborhood has to offer.  Then offer something back.  For Thanksgiving we volunteered with ElderFriends.  That was amazing to spend a few hours with a lonely elder person on that holiday.  Sure it made me miss my parents, but hey, they're gone.  I better find some new ones.

Don't get me wrong, I'm big on travel and I love holiday vacations. But this year, we're staying home, because just like the song says, there's no place like home for the holidays.  To all of you who helped to make this year great at Up your Creative Genius, thank you and I hope to see you around town!

  (At Swanson's with the REAL REINDEER!)

Aligning Yourself With All That You Are

In a recent workshop I attended, participants were asked to identify one thing in their world in which they needed to make a change. I admit I really had to search for something, since I love my work and my life.  It is filled with freedom and adventure.

When I shone the flashlight into the back of the theatre of my mind as David Rock talks about in his new book Your Brain at Work, I discovered one niggling thought way back in the very last row.  While I have been studying the laws of the universe and the spiritual nature of life for over 25 years, I bring a small percent of this into my working sessions.   My process has often been to leverage my WOO (winning other's over) strength using humor and commentation at the beginning of the session, and then, when it was safe, introduce one or two of these deeper ideas.  I realized here was a great opportunity to bring myself more in alignment with all that I am.

Last week I began opening my sessions by starting from this place of connection, rather than waiting until it was safe.  Mindful of other people's freedom, I simply began by stating something like, "There is a world cafe concept which says there are no accidents.  That you are the right people, right now, who have come together to discuss and answer these questions."  I opened another session with a story about Krazy George and the start of the Wave, a story that is both humorous and poignant and illustrates a deeper message.

And??!  By offering the opportunity to connect at a deeper level first, the sessions started from a more honest place.  It was as if this different kind of opening stilled the anxiety that often occurs at the start of the session when participants are wondering if this day is going to go well.  My aha?  Be all that you are! (doh!)

I invite you to reflect on the current state of your life and work.  Ask yourself, "Where can I take a risk and bring more of myself into what I am doing?"  Then jump off that diving board into the pool of something new and up your creative genius.  I look forward to hearing what you find!

Want to Save Your Brain? Visually Prioritize Your Priorities!

There is a new book out by David Rock called Your Brain At Work.  I have been awaiting this book's release for a couple of months because it was touted to be a great book on neuroscience that actually can help you figure out how to work better.  They were right.  This book is great.

One of the coolest descriptions in the book is Rock's description of the Prefrontal Cortex; which is the part of the brain that helps us decide what to do, among other things.  He describes the prefrontal cortex as like a stage that actors use.  The actors that enter from the sides are the external stimulus that we see, experience, etc.  The actors who enter the stage from the audience are the conversations we have going on with different parts of ourselves.   All of these "actors" can interact with each other.  When we try to remember something from the past, depending upon how far back or how hard it is to remember, it is like a person sitting in a dark seat way off in the corner of the theater that we have to search for to shine a light on and talk with.

Why is this analogy important?  Well each of these interactions or actions, whether it is the actors interacting on the stage or the act of remembering something, takes up our brain's energy.  Come to find out that stage is TINY.  It can only hold about 4 things on it at the same time.  When you and I open our computers and the emails flood in, and we add to that all of the things we need to do while taking care of our home lives, schedule, hobbies, exercise, etc...we can become instantly overwhelmed.  Too many actors on stage!  That's why sometimes we'd rather just shut the lid and go eat breakfast, or go back to bed.

Rock suggests that the greatest thing we can do for our brains is to take time first thing in the morning to  "prioritize our priorities."   This act relieves our brain of trying to figure out which of the actors or interactions on stage to shine the light on.  Rock also suggests that the best way to prioritize...is to VISUALIZE what you need to do by either drawing it out, seeing it in your mind, and putting it down on paper.  The visuals create order and understanding.

Take a moment right now to test this tip for yourself.  Write, draw, see the things you need to do, and then decide which one takes the most amount of energy and attention and do that thing first!  Save your brain for what's most important.  See if you can't up your creative genius by optimizing your brain's power for better results!

What the Brainiacs Know About Creative Genius

Brain scientists know that you are going to remember only 1 thing in about 10 that I write here.
AND I am going to need to make it memorable with a story, a picture, and something stimulating!


John Medina says I am going to have to repeat it again in 90 minutes for it to truly lodge in your memory.
That's right and then AGAIN in 90 minutes and again 90 minutes after that.  That could make for a really long blog post.  (Well no wonder they run that Geiko ad so many times.)


In a TED talks 18 minute presentation on creativity, Elizabeth Gilbert shared her view on creative genius.  She reminded us that the Greeks and Romans believed creative genius to be separate from you, and flowed through you into the universe.  This separate thing removed you from being responsible if your art or idea was "good" or "not so good" when it manifested itself.  If you didn't think it was great, you simply blamed it on your creative muse.  You were simply the vehicle through which creativity or inspiration expressed itself.  


In her talk, Gilbert told a story about a long time poet who told her how poems would come to her.  She said,  "I would be working in the fields and I'd hear the poem come thundering my way and I would run as fast as I could to get into the house and grab a pen and paper to catch that poem as it came through me.  Sometimes I would miss it and it would go on down the road looking for another poet to write it down.  Other times I would catch just the tail end of the poem and I would pull it back through my body onto the page.  At those times, the poem would come out perfectly, but backwards."  


What about this do I want you to remember?  That you are off the hook and free to explore and express what is at this very moment coming through you.  Take time to run into your house, grab your own creative idea by the tail and pull it back into your world.  The world will be a better place for it.


Up your Creative Genius

Getting New Things to Happen

Since the business launch, I have gotten a lot of questions...how is this different from what you did before? etc. My favorite response is, "That's top secret!" heh heh heh!

In fact, while I get the new website up, I have been doing some testing with my teams. Here's what we've been up to:

Rocket Launching - Having FUN

Did you know that you can shoot a rocket 1000 feet into the air with a bike pump? You have to check this out!

Email Launching - Making CONNECTIONS

Not to bore you, but I felt compelled to hand write each and every client and person on my email list. That was a tip from @chrisbrogan. Wow. Okay honestly I'm still on the "r"s, but guess what? Almost everyone wrote me back. (and only 2 wanted off my list ;-)

Idea Launching - Validating WHAT'S NEW

For months I have been devouring books on neuroscience in hopes that I could recommend that "one book" to you that would validate and encapsulate all I have been testing with creativity. To be honest, I haven't seen a lot of "new" ideas.

Frankly, the best concepts remain the same:

1. If you want to create change, tell a compelling story filled with images and metaphors with a clear way for your audience to grab hold and make the change happen.

2. What people believe determines the outcome. Remember the teachers who were told that their underachievers were "gifted" students? A year later, those same students she worked with, tested as truly "gifted".

3. What if we apply Bateson's testing to teams? Bateson ran tests with dolphins to "drive them crazy." First he gave them rewards when they performed a series of tricks, then he withheld the reward to see what they'd do in hopes they would "go crazy". Guess what? They did, but after a short period of going crazy, they created completely new tricks.

Hmmmm, this indicates to me that to possibly get new ideas, you have to challenge people by creating a little dissonance.

Here's a few tips I tried with one of my high tech teams:

• Warn them what they are about to do is something they never have before - this scares them a little.
• Put them into a creative environment that is outside their comfort zone. (I call this creative waterboarding)
• Challenge them to solve a problem that (in their current roles) they have no control over.
• Watch them implode, then explode. Result? Amazing new solutions and ideas.
• Reward them with food.

Idea generation...not brain science? Or is it? Until next time...

Up Your Creative Genius!

Up your Creative Genius

After 10 years of working with my fantastic partners, Chris Chopyak and Lois Todd in our company Alchemy: The Art of Transforming Business, I have decided to do something different. (Not that I don't always do something different, but this time I wanted to do something REALLY different.)

I have turned over the reins for Alchemy to them and launched a new venture, Up your Creative Genius.

What most of you have been asking me is "How can I be more creative in my life, with my teams and in my company? How can I do that?"

Up your Creative Genius is my answer.  Since I'm all about sending links or tips on how you can get what you want, here's a few to start you thinking about how you can Up your Creative Genius today:

1. Pay attention to what parts of your world are in a state of status quo and when (and why) you choose to let them remain there.
2. Step out of your comfort zone every single day.
3. Push yourself beyond what feels easy to do. (If you are a runner, sprint 3x in your workouts. If you are in IT, learn to paint. If you are a creative, balance your checkbook.)
4. Play as much as you can - if you need to use your kids as an excuse, play games, sports, and silly childish games that make you laugh with them often.
5. Draw your ideas on a whiteboard or napkin or on the back of your hand.

And when you find yourself getting stuck, give a call. Up your Creative Genius has tons of ideas for how you can accelerate what you are doing right now to take it up a notch into the stratosphere of your choosing.

Freedom - the Heart of Change

Recently when I was facilitating a world cafe conversation on spirituality I felt something in my world start to shift.  I couldn't quite call out what or why this major change needed to occur, I just knew intuitively it had to.

"Now what?"  I asked myself. Here is where it got quite tricky.  While I didn't know what I was transitioning into, I knew that at the heart of this change was a need for more freedom.

Freedom is a hot topic with my clients.  Oftentimes it is the lack of freedom that creates a kind of unrest in employees.  While leaders want the job done well, a lack of trust can also cause managers to over manage employees. That takes away their freedom.

Inhibiting freedom isn't just about micromanaging.  It's also about

allowing people to set their own schedules, identify their own way to get work done, letting them go when they need a change, or helping them shift their role in the company.  In a recent work/life balance interactive I ran, I was amazed by all of the images of freedom that showed up in their desired states. Even a February 2009 Time magazine article described the younger generation of Millenials as demanding freedom.   Why shouldn't they have it? 

While you may not always know how change will shape your world, or what next adventure you or your team members will be stepping into, give yourself and those around you freedom of choice. From this place everyone feels the expansiveness to explore, examine and choose wisely their next move.  

You may be surprised at the ease in which the right change will occur.