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I completely agree with the creativity and kids perspective. We actually teach creativity OUT of kids and then later try to stuff it back in. Sort of like the food industry that strips nutrients away during processing and then “fortifies” cereals and other products. It was naturally fortified to begin with!

Storytelling is great. Pixar even has a narrative framework to write a story. A common line in the formula is “because of that _________.”

1. Once upon a time, there was …

2. Every day …

3. One day …

4. Because of that …

5. Because of that …

6. Because of that …

7. Until finally …

8. Ever since then …

Sadly, some people simply are not and never will be creative. That’s OK because those people have things, like execution, relationship building, and influencing talents that other people may not have. And often people simply “want” to be creative like people “want” to be good at sports or music. They can learn to play a piano but never understand how to play a piano musically. That is basically a description of talent diversity: one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. There is more complexity to diversity than how we typically think from a social perspective.

I personally liked to use what I call “conceptual creativity” with work groups, focusing on the concept rather than an idea. For example, you can tell people to design a really good umbrella but the concept is to actually stay dry. The umbrella is just one idea based on something you already know that can lock us into a way of thinking.

From my perspective, part of the concept of today’s column is that kids have less in their brain to draw upon for ideas so they focus more on the concept in fun and unpredictable ways - until we begin eliminating fun time as we teach them to be adults. Tech at least had it partly right: have fun at work!

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This is perhaps one of the greatest, most terrible deficiencies in our modern/post-modern age. We think we’ve “evolved” and “progressed” beyond our pre-modern forebears, but in fact, in spite of the technological breakthroughs and innovations we enjoy (I enjoy!), our lack of imagination has led us to the point of thinking we are the end-all, be-all point of life, circumventing both our true purpose and our Creator.

I’m sure some (many?) will disagree with me. I love America. But I think a great many of our personal and cultural problems stem from this turn to the dialectic and absolute logic over-against the story of who we truly are and where we really come from, and it’s not a pool of primordial sludge and a family tree with primates — again, surely a point of contention for some. This gets back to the point of Robert Fulghum’s “Everything I Needed to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten.” There, and along the way, we all both learned and enjoyed the power of story. There’s a true story that makes sense of the world, of life, our own brokenness and that of the world’s, as well as our only hope.

Enjoy, and have a great day!

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What on earth is a political violence expert? And why on earth do we need one? I think we have far too many "experts" these days yet nothing seems to get resolved.

Need some creative ways !

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Thank you for an article which at least mentioned (albeit only in passing) the violence in August 2021. I believe by allowing the rioting to continue with almost no consequences for the participants, it set the stage for Jan 6th. If violent protest was not condemned in August it could not be condemned in January. And conversely, if violence was condoned in August, it could not condemned in January. Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, even if the ideologies were on opposite ends of the political spectrum.

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founding

First off, the JWST story is AMAZING and so cool, literally 😄

So I take a little issue with the “Worst is coming” story. Remember in school when we learned for every action, there is an opposite and equal reaction. Perhaps the response to hyper sensitivity and word policing is chest thumping and knuckle dragging. The left has gone too far and now the right is reacting. I’d love a leader that could bring it back to the middle. We all aren’t THAT different. We want safe streets, clean environments, earn a reasonable living to have a roof over our heads, and the ability to raise a family with movie nights and a vacation. However, that’s not catchy and doesn’t sell ads, so maybe it comes down to what we all already know “money is the root of all evil” isn’t it…………..advertisers

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Does anyone else think of the movie "Big", with Tom Hanks, as a perfect example of this?

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Having spent some 15 years if my life in a creative capacity at a toy company, I was amazed when working in a creative capacity at another company! Talk about dullsville! Quiet meetings and brainstorms where people were afraid to speak! I was used to walking by meetings and being summarily summoned by the group having a brainstorm! Hey! ——, Get in here! What d’a ya think if this? Fun is a big component to creativity. No idea is “too crazy!”. And all members of the group should be allowed to speak with no derision or rolling eyes! When I was in hs, my English teacher asked me to stand up and tell the class how I wrote my compositions! I had never really thought of it as a process before, but realized that I did take a divergent point of view, often a funny one. It was all about entertainment for me. If it wasn’t fun, I wasn’t there! I also realized that most teachers had a pile of ho-hum dirges to correct on the boring subject matter they had assigned. I loved being a breath of fresh air for myself and the corrector! Worked for me!

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I had fun today posting about Understandably, almost in a child-like fashion, as I like to promote the newsletter in any way I can. Here is a link to my Instagram reel from today relating to my reading of Understandably.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cf86oV3jFLA/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

I'll even throw in the link for the one about my reading of The Peak.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cf8zUb_gA-R/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=

Hope you're all having a great day! I know I am.

Very good news, my friend Mitch Jean the country rock artist just obtained the 1,000 subscribers he needs to monetize his YouTube channel. He puts out so much great content on his YouTube channel, it's high time he gets some money out of it. He also needed 4,000 watch hours on his channel, which he obtained a short time ago.

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