8 New Highly Radical Ways to be Super Creative

Posted on May 19, 2017 by Daniel Wong, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

8 New Highly Radical Ways to be Super Creative
- That Draws Out the ‘Inventor in You’

We as humans are all creative beings; whether you like it or not! And everyone needs to be more creative whether you are a grocery store owner, factory manager, business entrepreneur, office administrator, etc. and what more for the artist, singer, architect or designer be it hardware or software. But that being said, not everyone wants to be creative nor think that they can be creative! The fact is that if we were more creative, we could have better sales, more productivity in the plant, bigger business revenue turnover, better workflow, create better relationships or perhaps sing, draw or design much more artistically or creatively.

So, it pays to be creative! Even the CEOs in the Asia Pacific CEO Forum all came to a unanimous agreement that in order to survive a challenging or highly competitive business environment, innovation and creativity is highly essential to circumvent the opposing forces in building a sustainable and successful business. Hence, the big question is how can we be much more creative in our work, business, professional or personal life?

Now, even though, most gurus in creativity proposes and preaches doing things differently – like taking a walk in the park or a warm bath or deep breathing may have its’ place in triggering the figment of our imagination, but not many people are like Albert Einstein who supposedly had an apple fall on his head or Archimedes who took a bath and thereby gained ‘Eureka’ insights. The truth is any kind of simple activity may inspire one to think differently or attract creative ideas, such as listening to Mozart or watching children play or eating your mother’s favourite apple pie or just simply sniffing roses in the garden, etc.

Here, we are not going back to the logical and fundamental techniques of becoming more creative; but instead, we are going to explore 8 highly radical or extraordinary thought provoking ways how we can become super creative. It does challenges the conventional method of thinking and if you find yourself saying: this is unfamiliar or impossible or crazy or illogical, then know that we are heading somewhere new. The old familiar ways are the standard ways of thinking and create boxes in the way we process thoughts; the out-of-the box new ways are:

1. Thinking Illogically

For those familiar with the 2-sides to the brain theory, we will remember that the creative mind is the right brain which is also called the subjective/subconscious mind. Scientists call the left brain the logical mind but the right brain, the emotional mind. But I find that very unfair because if the left brain is logical, then the right must be illogical – logically speaking that is! And to a certain extent, this is true as when people get highly emotional or angry they do become illogical, act insensibly, or get ‘mad’ as we say in the Queens’ English.

So thinking illogically is the essence of the creative mind. If one is creative, he cannot but sound illogical or perhaps even answer questions that have not been asked. If one is highly creative, then he must be highly illogical. (Suddenly, Mr Donald Trump, the President of the United States, came to my mind; how he does sound very illogical to many people around the world!). Just as the great thinkers or inventors of the past; they were thought crazy by their contemporaries. Nonetheless, they brought great new thoughts or inventions into the world making it a better place or more convenient for all.

Thinking illogically has its’ merits to bring us into our creative right mind – expanding our minds into thoughts or ideas or concepts that do not make any common sense leads us to uncommon grounds. And that may be the break-through we seek in order to be radically creative.

2. Thinking the Impossible

After teaching Creative Thinking for more than 16 years, I have come to the conclusion that:

“Those things which we find impossible for us to think, accept, believe or do and those things which we find possible for us to think, accept, believe or do are definitely keeping us EXACTLY where we are.” – Daniel Wong

We can’t move an inch beyond our unconscious limits or boundaries of what is possible for us. Just think about it yourself: as soon as someone says something and we found it acceptable, we’ll go with the flow. But if we found it unacceptable, we’ll bow out or stop dead on our tracks! So, what do you know about these seemingly unconscious limitations inside our heads keeping us from becoming highly creative?

You see, the fact is, no discoverer nor inventor could have discovered or invented anything if they didn’t move into their impossibilities to make them possible. Everyone of them did! Marconi who invented wireless telegraphy was sent to the asylum for proposing an impossible idea to the Italian Ministry of Post and Telegraphy. The Wright brothers who needed funds for their invention, were turned away by the US senate and were told off: “If man were meant to fly, God would have given us wings to fly!” And so what is everyone doing nowadays? “Now everyone can fly” – Air Asia’s slogan.

But many people disassociate and do not see themselves as discoverers nor inventors. The question is when our superior delegates a task or responsibility to us, are we told exactly what to do? In most cases, we weren’t told exactly what to do. And where does that leaves us? We start groping around, exploring, inquiring from seniors, seeking advice or information from people or the internet. And in so doing, are we not by right, discoverers and inventors in our own areas of responsibility?

So, being a discoverer or inventor of sorts, we must continually take what’s impossible for us and to make them possible in order for us to be radically creative at work!

3. Going Against the Flow

‘To be successful, you must be willing to do the things today others won’t do in order to have the things tomorrow others won’t have’ – Les Brown

The great motivator ‘Les Brown’ says that we must be willing to do what others won’t do in order to be successful which implies that we must go against the flow. Thinking of the things outside our comfort zone stretches and expands our mind. Thinking in a way which is against conventional thinking pattern creates new ideas.

No one has become great by following standards and thinking like what others do. Standardization is good for handling logical problems or issues but certainly not good for the imagination – it serves only to limit the mind. Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest person in the world, have often amass great wealth from his stocks by buying when all others sell and sells when all others buy. He was willing to do the things other won’t do – setting him apart as one of the most successful investors in the world.

But going against the flow requires immense courage and tenacity in face of adverse criticisms, unfavourable comments or unsupportive words even from well-meaning friends or relatives; especially when things are not working out yet. But if we are sure of our directions heading towards our goal/passion and adamant about our stand, they will see the light of day later even if they didn’t understand. And as Les Brown said: ‘if they did understand, no explanation is needed but if they did not understand, no explanation shall suffice.’ Because we are heading for something bigger and out-of-the-ordinary or highly radical where many shall find it hard to comprehend.

4. Using Eye Cues

Dr Richard Bandlar, the co-founder of Neuro Linguistic Programming, discovered that the eyes move in various patterns or directions depending on how we are thinking what we are thinking. In NLP, we call this tool the Eye Accessing Cues and the movements are usually unconscious to the person who is speaking. When the eyes move towards our left, we are trying to recall some previous events or experiences form our past. And the eyes tend to move to our right when we are creating or thinking about something new.

From another science about the Mind-Body connection called Pyscho Neuro-Immunology, we understand how changes in the neuro connection in the brain causes changes in the body. The reverse is also found true. That is, any changes in our body movement affects the neuro connections in the brain. Hence, if we do put the two sciences together, any changes in the eye movement causes neuro connection in different parts of the brain. In short, if we want to be more creative, all we have to do is to fire the creative neurons by moving our eyes to our right – right up for creating new visual images and right level with the eyes for creating new sounds.

To increase the effectiveness of this technique significantly is to affirm that ‘new ideas are coming to me’ as we are looking towards our right side. This technique of generating new ideas is particularly useful in brainstorming sessions. Try it! You’ll never know if it will work until you try, but do give your subconscious mind some time to process and present the new ideas to your conscious mind. Do not expect immediate results – it works better after doing it to leave the idea of creating new ideas alone and move your conscious focus onto other matters so as to leave you subconscious to process new super creative ideas effectively!

5. Self-Hypnosis – A Subconscious Technique

Knowing that the creative mind is also the subconscious mind, we cannot be very creative in our consciousness. Hence, many great thinkers or discoverers had their sparks of new creativity during the time when they are calm and relaxed or more accurately, moving into their subconscious mental states – like taking a relaxing walk in the beach, the park or the gardens, watching birds flying or apples/leaves falling to the ground, or taking a warm bath, etc.

Now, we don’t have to do all that to get ourselves into our subconscious states. What better to do is practise self-hypnosis by sitting quietly alone at a relaxing surrounding, close our eyes, take consistent deep breaths, let our mind wonder on the subject matter and on all the intricacies/details of the matter. See in your mind eyes the new solutions falling into place or the new ideas or concepts are developing as it should in your imagination. Ask yourself questions if necessary: how can it be done better, are there other alternatives, what options do you have if you couldn’t fail, what ways can it be improved, etc.

Albert Einstein in all his intelligence still says: “Imagination is more Important than Knowledge”
There were propositions how he came out with all his new mathematical formulas and equations leading to his discovery of the Theory of Relativity and it was through this very same subconscious technique which he used is a dark little room lying on an easy-chair. Try it – another Albert Einstein could be in the making!

6. Affirmations – A Subconscious Technique

Ever tried taking a big mental problem to bed, slept on it and in the middle of the night you woke up to extraordinary insights or solutions? I remembered the time when I was in college in the 1980s, I had to work on programming an electronic game on my hexadecimal primitive computer. I just couldn’t get the trajectory of the missile to land correctly until I went home thinking about it till I slept and late in the middle of the night woke up to a solution. Immediately I wrote out the programme in hexadecimal codes, ran to college first thing in the morning and plug it into the primitive computer and ‘eureka’ it worked wonderfully!

Now in NLP, you do not have to take an 8-hour sleep before coming out with radical ideas or solutions. Just follow the self-hypnosis technique above and use continual affirmations that you shall see a solution or an extraordinary answer or a powerful insight as soon as you awake. Recite it like a mantra, till you find yourself half asleep spinning deep into your subconscious. Allow yourself half an hour to 45 mins for the complete process.

7. Visualization – A Subconscious Technique

NASA call this method of using the brains, VMR or Visual Motor Rehearsal.

In the morning, do we all look at the mirror before leaving home? And when we do look at the mirror, what did we see? A kitten or a Lion? Now, if our answer is: we saw ourselves, then, we have used our sight. If we answered: a lion or a kitten, then, we have used our vision!

Our great God or Higher Being or whatever you call it, has given us four human endowments – one of which is the ability to visualize. Apparently, only we humans has this ability; the animals do not. So, if we are unable to use this power of visualization, don’t ask me for help; you have to ask the great God.

Hellen Keller in all her wisdom said: ‘the most pathetic thing in the world is a man with his sight but without his vision’!

Certainly, we all use our eyes to see. We’ve been taught: Look before you Leap! But if we were to live our life only by the evidence of what we can see, then, our scope of imagination and ability is highly limited – we’ll be unable to envision our greater self our future or achieving our goals. Living by sight works very well during emergencies or for logical problems; but when we want to get ahead of ourselves, strive for our goals or achieve the extraordinary, we must visualize it! One great guru, did say: if you can’t see your goals, you can’t achieve it!

VMR in a sense, uses this ability to visualize the whole process how we are to achieve our goals and the end results as well. The astronauts were placed on programmes to exercise their abilities to visualize how they walk or move or act in zero gravity. Their end result was that they did much better when they used their minds this way as compared to those who did not. Athletes and sportsmen performed better after their visual rehearsal; sometimes up to 30-40 % improvements.

Hence, similarly we as creative thinkers can also exploit this way of using our brains so that we could perform better in our mental activity. And if you want to be super creative, just play all the visuals out in the mind how something can be done, how ideas can work out, how concepts can develop, etc. Play a movie in the head! Both the end results and the process of running through the ideas can and should be visualized. This technique adds fuel to fire up the mind creatively!

8. Magic & Miracles

Dr Wayne Dyer, a well-known speaker in spirituality, was quoted as saying: ‘I expect miracles’

How do we define something magical or miraculous? Most people will say it’ll be something out of the ordinary, haven’t seen or experienced before, unusual, mysterious, delightful, surprising or unexpected, etc. But lets’ just say if we could cause an event or experience to happen consistently where and when we want it to, then miracles will no longer be magic but instead a ‘science’- as stated by Dr Richard Bandlar.

So what does Dr Wayne Dyer meant by saying ‘I expect miracles’. Whereas many says the reverse: that miracles just happen by itself and unexpectedly. Now if we could just put ourselves in a state or condition, in a state of mind and in a time & place that allow for miracles to happen, perhaps if miracles became consistent, then indeed we shall experience a break-though, create a new science and begin to expect miracles to happen!

For the masses, miracles are unusual and thinks that it probably won’t happen and if it does, they won’t be the one to experience it. But if we go by the words of Buddha: ‘we are what we think about; what we think we become’. Or the Bible: ‘As a man think, so shall he be.’ And so say many other great thinkers and philosophers in different words to the same effect. It presupposes that miracles are then not meant for the masses who thinks it won’t happen; but meant for the few, like Dr Dyer, who thinks it’ll happen then it will!

Hence, perhaps we need to open up our minds to magic and miracles to be radically creative beings – by setting a strong intention for what we’ll like happen, truly believe that it will and set our minds on it happening already in our imagination. After all, all things were created twice first in the mind and then in reality according to Stephen Covey, writer of the ‘7 Habits of Highly Effective People’.

All being said, the conclusion of how to be highly and radically super creative is:

‘Whatever your mind can conceive and truly believe, you can achieve’ – Napoleon Hill