I'm Not Creative

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I'm Not Creative

January 21, 2009. By Peter Lloyd

Anyone who's ever said, "I'm not creative," please read carefully. Yes, you are. And I can prove it.

Are you ready?

Imagine a grapefruit. Nice going. That was your right brain working, by the way. Now imagine what you could do with this grapefruit.

Eat it? Not an exceptionally creative thought. Except that eating an imaginary grapefruit takes more creative power than eating a real one. So we're on the right track.

What if the grapefruit ate you? Would it hurt? What would it look like inside? What would it sound like, smell like, feel like? Do you see its teeth? Or does it use some other method of feeding?

Does this feel weird, imagining what it's like to be eaten by a grapefruit? It shouldn't. It's simply a form of creative thinking.

Even though I'm leading you, you are doing the creative part, imagining the experience. And I'll bet every reader creates a very different image of what it's like.

That's because each one of you is being creative. And this is just one example of creative thinking. It's not particularly useful or productive. Not until it's applied to a problem.

You have many, many more ways of exercising your creative powers. Here are just a few, posed in the form of questions:

Have you ever laughed at a joke?

Ever sing in the shower?

Have you ever made up an excuse?

Do you doodle?

Ever sensed another person's mood?

Ever dreamed of being a star?

Do you have a hobby?

These are all very basic right brain operations. And most of us do most of them. That's because we're all creative.

Now it's your turn. Let your imagination take you wherever you want to go. Do it every day if you don't already. Then when you're real confident using it, put it to work on a real problem.

Peter Lloyd is co-creator with Stephen Grossman of Animal Crackers, the breakthrough problem-solving tool designed to crack your toughest business problems.

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