A Must Read on Creativity

I just read this and had to share.  There is such brilliance in these 4 truths.  This is a REPOST from Bryan Franklin's blog.

I was talking with a man who is responsible for envisioning the future of how we will light our world (He’s a VP in the marketing department of Philip’s LED division, Lumileds, who is reducing the power needed to generate light by up to 85%) and he was sharing with me his ideas. I can’t tell you what they are because I’ve signed an NDA, but suffice it to say they are REALLY cool.

Is Creativity A Trait Or A Condition?

He wanted to know from me how he could get the rest of his team to think as creatively as he does. Maybe they just aren’t as creative as he is? I think they are.
As a thoroughly mundane attribute of being human, each of us has a connection to what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious, and it is my experience that moments of heightened creativity have more to do with tapping into a universal creative archetype than any unique attribute of a specific person.
Performers, athletes, writers, computer programmers and professionals of all stripes attribute their most creative acts to being in a state of ‘the zone’. While in the zone, parts of themselves seem to disappear, and creativity moves through them, from a universal source, out into our world.

Where Is The Zone And How Do I Get There?

Creativity is an emergent property that arises from specific conditions, and if those conditions are present and are not at risk of degrading, every person will be able to tap into creative genius. People who are considered to be more creative are those that are more able to self-generate these specific conditions. The ‘zone’ is a byproduct of these four conditions.
1) Spaciousness
Give your self mental time and space. Allow time for the habitual thought patterns to dissipate. My friend at Lumileds does all his thinking on Airplanes, because there he has time and space that he literally can’t do anything else with. Drive time and shower time are great for this. Take a walk. Designate an area of your workspace for creativity and keep it absolutely clear of debris. Do what ever it takes to give your mind the experience of spaciousness.
2) Constraints
The reason most sequels are not as good as the originals isn’t that the filmmakers run out of ideas, its because they usually have significantly more time, money, and latitude from the studio for the 2nd movie. The first one was a huge success, so budgets and egos expand. Then, as the constraints decrease, the quality of creativity decreases as well. The beauty of human creativity is born of the constraints of being human. From arbitrary deadlines to iambic pentameter – find constraints that inspire your creative mind.
3) Model Of Inspiration
Inspiration basically comes in two forms. The first is: I want to be like you. Writers emulate writers. Musicians emulate musicians. Businesses emulate businesses. Choose someone that inspires you and study how they do everything they do. Neither compete nor idolize your inspiration. Just observe.
The second form of inspiration is: I want to express what its like to know you. Ravel’s “Une Barque Sur L’ocean” is a musical expression of what its like to be at sea. Write like Monet. Work like a gladiator. Love like Bobby Fisher. Take any idea in one context and express it in a non-compatible context. Be explicit about your inspiration and hold he/she/it in your mind as you create.
4) Love Your Ideas Into Existence
Each idea fragment that spills from your mind must be met by a resounding “YES”. The more you love the seedlings that sprout in your mind, the more fertile the mind itself becomes. Your objective is to open the channel between you and the universal archetype of creativity (creation), not to evaluate how the fruit will taste from the tree that might grow from the seed you see. Each “YES” loves the channel more open. Each “NO” closes it. Put your ideas in a context where they will be loved into existence by you and met with a “YES” both by you and by others. Once each idea begins to develop and mature, then step back and evaluate it. There will be a point when your channel is so open that trashing your ideas cannot close it – and that’s when you will experience brilliance.
Until that point, your job is not to come up with good ideas, but to love every idea that you come up with.