doug smith training

Chaos may spark creativity. Order makes it useful. -- doug smith

You deserve a day of creativity -- and you are well-equips to bring it on! These are for you: I know creativity when I see it because I am filled with creativity! However creative I have ever been has been just enough and now I can do more! I can create on my own and I can create in collaboration -- my creativity is my choice. No one can EVER talk me out of my creativity! Creative stuff is about to happen! -- great for you! Now go get creative! -- doug smith

Do you still draw? All of us draw when we're kids. Some better than others but all with imagination and enthusiasm. My first sketches were yellow wax pencils (designed for writing on glass) on black photo-album paper. Not brilliant. Not representational. But I still remember the moment of fun and abandon. Draw something today. Draw it with total abandon. Let your tool decide, let your hand go wild, draw something. Drawing something with open up a part of your creativity that will serve you well wherever you need it. And, don't you need it right now? -- doug smith

Your next great creative moment is right there in from of you. Grab it! -- doug smith

Are you in charge of your creativity? Do you play with new ideas, new textures, new techniques? Your creativity is yours to manage and it's also in your hands, literally. From another angle: your hands create. Think about a sculptor at work, her hands carefully forming her art. Her mind is completely engaged, maybe even in a flow, and her hands instinctively, creatively, know what to do. That only comes after hours of practice. Think about a concert pianist: the mind is involved, the heart is involved, and the hands are doing far more than running thru the paces of mechanical memory. The hands are creating tone, inflection, articulation, emphasis, texture, stylization, and yes even emotion. The hands add what the brain hasn't even imagined until it hears it coming straight from the hands. That level of synthesis only comes after many hours of practice. Name the format and the hands are there -- not just as a set of useful tools but also as generators of inspired cre...

Expand your view. Let go of preconceptions. Wiggle loose your perceptions long enough to visualize more, ever more, possibilities. Are you locked into your thinking? Is your mind made up on certain concepts, designs, beliefs? It's easy to slip into a comfortable certainty about what we believe and to then accept that as absolute truth. How would we even know if absolute truth was absolute? What if we tested our beliefs? What if we did learn about opposite points of view? What if we did explore ideas that were radically different than our own? If our own truths are truly absolute, couldn't they withstand the most probing scrutiny and the most rigorous doubts? And if our beliefs are valid beyond doubting then couldn't they emerge confident after wandering through some divergent paths? What if we let down our guard and listed openly to a new idea? What if our version of the truth is incomplete and could benefit from cranking open the windows and breathing s...

Send your inner judge out for milk and cookies.  Is your inner judge constantly working? Do you hear your inner critic finding fault with things? We need to be able to analyze. It's useful to be able to differentiate, evaluate, and decide. But, our inner judge is such a strong voice that it sometimes drowns out everything else. When that happens, nothing looks right. When that happens, our creativity suffers. Your creative muse is not in love with your inner judge. Your creative muse would like a break, now and then, from an endless stream of criticism. Some ideas are going to be wild. Some musings will be suspicious in usefulness. Some creations might fall apart eventually. But they all need time to percolate, time to brew, time to stew, and time to form legs enough of their own to survive the inner critic in us. So give your creativity a break from your inner judge. Your ideas will thank you for it. -- Doug Smith

How bold is your creative challenge? Do you challenge yourself creatively, to do more, innovate more, surprise more, invent more? When we challenge ourselves first it makes it easier, and more credible, to challenge others. We all need more creative challenge. The world needs our creativity to fix its problems, change its sad story, bring peaceful relationships out and harmonize with more beauty and love. Does that sound too mushy? What world would you create? What would you like to see more of in the world? Create boldly. Challenge boldly. And, do it with peace and love. That's a tall order AND we can do it. It involves choices. Breathe before that next choice and choose peace and love. It's possible. Bold creativity challenges people without harming them. We can stretch. We must grow. Creativity keeps it all going. -- Doug Smith

How many strings are on a 12-string guitar? No, it's not a trick question, but if you're in my house on the right day, the answer could be eleven. That's not the right answer, but it is the true answer. Why? It's not intentional. The strings come in various gauges, simplified on the container as Light, Medium, and Extra Light (an interesting logic of its own) and the mediums are hard to find. Using light gauge strings on a 12-string guitar means that the thinnest string is so thin (.08 cm) that it's very easily broken. Sometimes, I can break a string while I'm tuning it, that's how easy they are to break. When that happens, it's eleven-string time until the next trip to the music store. If you don't tell anyone, an eleven-string guitar could go undetected for weeks (I've done it). The sound is pretty much the same and the strings are so close together to begin with that you'd need to really get close to see the gap. It's not ide...

What limits your creativity? We could come up with lots of answers here. You might call them excuses. There's really only one thing that limits our creativity: ourselves. You are more or less as creative as you decide to be. No one can stop you. Nothing can stand in your way. You can use your creativity to overcome any barriers TO your creativity. You are your only limitation. I am my only limitation to creativity. Let's not stand in our way! -- Doug Smith

Where do you test your best creative ideas? Not all creative ideas are the same. Some require a sort of close inspection with careful boundaries and controlled conditions, otherwise they will become impossible to work with or change into something we hadn't counted on. But not all creative ideas are like that. Some creative ideas benefit from a quick planting and careful observance to see how they're doing but are left to grow on their own. We tend to them, we remove obstacles and aberrations, but we let them grow naturally. Some creative ideas need a garden and some need a laboratory. If no one can get hurt, if you you've got lots of time, and if you want the unexpected to be welcome, plant your creative ideas in a garden like atmosphere of freedom and spontaneity. If the risks are high, the conditions are dangerous, and the talent is exposed to sudden change keep a laboratory-like grip on your creative conditions. Focus your attention on them but don't let...

Have you ever been stuck in a routine? It happens to me sometimes - I get really comfortable doing things in a certain order, eating certain types of food (I'll never get tired of pizza) and working at certain jobs. These little ruts are comfortable but not where I want to live. To live creatively we do better to break out of those routines. We need a change of scenery. We need to meet new people. We need to rock our own world enough to get off center long enough to know what our center really is. But it doesn't need to be earth shaking. We don't have to turn our lives upside down. We could even be happy with the way things are. That still leaves plenty of opportunity to see new, hear new, feel new, experience anew what may have been right in front of us all along, but brings a breath-taking newness to our life. There is something completely new about this moment in time. It's unique. No matter how familiar it seems, we've never lived this moment before...

What are you afraid of? Just kidding. I'm afraid of lots of things. Losing my phone. Falling over a cliff. Wandering naked in the street. Just kidding. But, aren't we all afraid of some things that are irrational to be afraid of? Don't we all hold ourselves back far more than we need to in order to protect ourselves from embarrassment, from harm, from making mistakes? We will make mistakes. We will hurt feelings. We will stub our toes. That's part of the creative life. That's part of living. Creativity needs a certain fearlessness. We must be able to let go and let loose. We must be able to laugh at the fear that paralyzes our impulses and push through those walls of warning. Full speed ahead! Imagine what we'll learn! Developing Creativity: Talk to someone who scares you just a little. Not an actual criminal or dangerous person, just someone who scares or intimidates you a little.  See a scary movie, whether or not you like scary movies. Not ...

Could you be more creative? I could. I think I'm already plenty creative but I know that there is always an unlimited amount of creativity there for me to grab. I can always pull up some more. How about you? You are about as creative as you want to be -- and your creative potential is unlimited. Let's go! Being Creative: Draw a picture. It doesn't matter how great it is. Draw it. Take a picture of something at an unusual angle. Get all Orson Welles with it. Feel the difference. Describe it. Write about it. What if it were used for something completely different - what could it be? Tell yourself this: "I am becoming the most creative person I know and I love it." -- Doug Smith doug smith training: how to achieve your goals   Front Range Leadership: Training Supervisors for Success What have you learned today?