Creative Thinking Book

balancing intuition and linear thinking in a world of complexity

I have been writing about intuitive decision making  because  the world is becomes increasingly complex, and it is doing so by leaps and bounds. As a result we have to not only learn to use our intuition but also to balance it out with our rationale mind.  It is extremely difficult to find the flaws in opposing points of view on the major forces driving the world. Anybody who seems to know more about a particular subject than you do can make a believable argument. This happens until you are simply left bewildered. (As an aside there is a fascinating eighteen minute presentation on the history of complexity that is worth the view. )

So how do we proceed? read more »

What to do if A Big Idea Is Tugging At You

Peter French photo of Wright house in Hawaii

This is often one of the biggest decisions we have to make from time to time. It calls for all of our creative and intuitive decision making courage.

Often it is a very powerful urge to go and do something like be a teacher in a foreign country or pursue a  compelling idea that you have no idea how to pull off. You know deep down inside that this is important  and if you let it go you know you will feel empty for not having tried.

This is what some refer to as a “Calling” or in Joseph Campbell’s terms “The Hero’s Journey.”  This is a pattern that its proponents argue is found in many narratives in one sense meaning that it is a deep seated archetypal pattern that repeats itself in many cultures.

The elements of the call are set forth in the diagram above. Basically there is the compelling idea and draw, the fear of  the unknown, the willingness to jump into the void, the challenges as you move forward, helpers who show up, some kind of transformational experience and the return with some boon of knowledge and wisdom.

But why do I call this the two edged sword? read more »

Frank LLoyd Wright's Loveness cottage

In making decisions in our lives and using a bit of creative thinking one of the issues that we face as we scale down is how much space do we need to fully enjoy ourselves.

Years ago I had a chance to go into probably forty or more Frank Lloyd Wright Structures while working on an architectural project you can see on one of my blog pages.. Of all of the designs the one that I could have moved into in a heart beat was the Loveness Cottage, in Stillwater,  Minnesota. A kissing cousin of the Seth Peterson Cottage they both are attributed with more architecture per square foot than any other of Wright’s designs. The Loveness’s hosted me and  were partially instrumental in helping me get a chance to build the Wright hemicycle design constructed on the Island of Hawaii.

The Seth Peterson cottage is available to stay in and for architectural buffs it should be on one’s “bucket list.” Why, because of the variation of experiences you get from moving from one short distance ( a matter of feet) to another, and that is the exact experience you get in the Loveness cottage. So what is the experience and in what size space? read more »

If the rules are changing what are they changing to?

Are we going to have to embrace a new paradigm with regard to the decisions we make and how we think? Are we going to have to be more creative in ways we have not thought about before? Are we going to have trust our intuition more? The answer I believe is a resounding”Yes.”

There is a compelling read in the Huffpost business site  by Arthur Delaney dealing with how the economy is making life exceptionally difficult. The rules we used to rely on simply don’t work anymore. People who trusted and believed in the American Dream are finding themselves out on the street with little hope, especially those further along in age.

There are a number of compelling statements such as:

“On the eve of my 60th birthday and without marketable skills I have no chance of ever finding a job again in the traditional economy,” writes a North Carolinian who’s been out of work nearly two years. “I am determined to survive this horror show. But my survival will not be determined by our broken economy. It’s ‘think outside the box’ time. Traditional methods obviously won’t work for people like me.”

Well what can you do? read more »

Is there a better way to do this?

What kind of decisions do we make around time spent at work Too often we forget to be mindful about how we are spending our time and how our minds need rest to be effective.   When I ran my ad agency, I was so compulsive that I would take work home  and work on proposals  often while watching television to stay current on the commercials.  In a way I felt like I was getting ahead. Also it helped me to relax. When I looked at the quality of the ideas and work the next morning it was frequently dull and unimaginative: that  three hours spent  in the evening I could have  covered the following morning in twenty minutes with much better results.

I also found that I would go to the office on Saturday thinking that the time there would somehow propel me further along. Rarely did I really accomplish anything. Often I would scan magazines or make calls to friends which I could have easily have done at home.

Then I found that too frequently I was scheduling meetings in the morning when my brain was freshest and should have been tackling critical thinking and proposals leaving the meetings for the afternoon when I could have been just as effective on less brainpower.

So what’s my point? read more »

Where Is Heaven?

The famed theoretical physicist, Stephen Hawking, finds no room for heaven in his vision of the cosmos in a recent Huffington Post.

When I was growing up, the prevailing view of heaven was that was the place you would go when you died and you could have any thing you wanted. On the other hand hell was supposed to be that place where you would receive eternal damnation. These are pretty large extremes. If there is no heaven how will this affect your life and decision making? read more »

If you scan the news and papers you will see that much of the change is coming down is occurring quicker than people can adjust.  For example in Greece you see the headline, “Austerity kindles deep discontent.” This is happening in pockets of America also as weather  and economic conditions can suddenly hit people faster than they can prepare. What kind of decision making makes sense now?

We seem to be moving into an era where the concept of material acquisitions are being  questioned with regard to the value and enjoyment received from them. My father once said that in retrospect the second home that he so revered in the mountains cost him the same amount to maintain as being able to stay in a five star hotel any where in the world for thirty days a year. If he had had it all to do all over again he would have taken the hotels. The point is that we are becoming more attuned to the idea that having things is just another way of having “experiences.” Some experiences are simply too costly compared to what else might be on the menu today.

So what’s my point? read more »

consciousness emerging from the subconscious

As I have been writing about in these blogs, we are all on a fast track to learning how to have more confidence in our intuition and how to connect with our subconscious. As our decision making begins to require more “gut” calls, how do we build confidence in this territory? read more »

Increasing our perspective

If we truly want to make different kinds of decisions sometimes we need to be placed into an environment in which our rationale minds are jolted: we  cannot believe what we are seeing,  but nevertheless it is happening. We need a catalyst. That kind of change seems to create a new portal in our brain. It allows us to be open in a way we never have before, an extremely useful state. I’ll admit this catalyst was a bit extreme but here is an example: read more »

Oh, that's what that could mean!

Sometimes it seems we decide to do things that have no big agenda, like to take a pleasure trip or engage in an activity with no sense of urgency attached. As a result  we are not torn between whether we should do it or not.  We are not looking for confirmations as to whether it is a good idea or not.

I maintain that even if we have a coincidence that at the moment does not seem like a “meaningful coincidence,” what Jung calls a synchronicity, perhaps it is.  And rather than dismissing it, ask ourselves if it has any significance.  My take is that coincidences out of the blue can be little signposts that we are on the right path and doing the right thing. From that point of view they can be very comforting, but we have to raise them to that level of consciousness: they are our visible connections to the collective unconscious.

Here is what I am talking about… read more »