Creativity is not always tortured genius, but it is about living right now

from mick's leadership blog

Creativity is not always tortured genius, but it is about living right now

I’ve just been reading Seth’s blog – his latest post is about genius. His most telling point – that “Genius is actually the eventual public recognition of dozens (or hundreds) of failed attempts at solving a problem” rather than some lightning bolt of insight.

This led me to wander around for a while, and I came back to Elizabeth Gilbert’s inspiring TED talk from 2009.

She takes on the idea that creativity is intertwined with being a “tortured artist”. Telling the story of creativity and artistry since the time of the Greeks, via the renaissance, she brings the story up to date with Tom Waits. Here’s a portion of the transcript of Elizabeth’s talk:

... http://bit.ly/bsfQi6

via Ping.fm

What Matters Now - a fascinating (and free!) eBook from Seth Godin

I always find Seth Godin's work interesting (like so many other people do, of course). So I thought I'd help share his latest free eBook. Here's the post from Seth's blog:

"Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up.

Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook I've organized will get you started on that path. It took months, but I think you'll find it worth it the effort.

Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O'Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.

Here's the deal: it's free. Download it here.

Or from any of the many sites around the web that are posting it with insightful commentary. Tweet it, email it, post it on your own site. I think it might be fun to make up your own riff and post it on your blog or online profile as well. It's a good exercise. Can we get this in the hands of 5 million people? You can find an easy to use version on Scribd as well.

Please share.Have fun. Here's to a year with ideas even bigger than these. Here's a lens with all the links plus an astonishing array of books by our authors."

I hope you enjoy!

Posted via web from mick's posterous

Soggy

Seth Godin's blog has to be one of the "must reads" out there - so I hope he will forgive me for quoting this entry from a few days ago ....

"New organizations and new projects are so crisp.

Things happen with alacrity. Decisions get made. Stuff gets done.

Then, over time, things get soggy. They slow down. Decisions aren't so black and white any more.

Why?

Here are some things that happen:

• Every initiative, post launch, still has a tail of activity associated with it. Launch enough things and over time, that tail gets bigger and bigger.
• Most projects either succeed or fail. Successful projects raise the stakes, because the team doesn't want to blow it. There are more people watching, more dollars at stake, things matter more. So things inevitably get more review, more analysis and slow down. Projects that fail sap the confidence of the group. They want to be extra sure that they're right this time, so, ironically, they slow down and end up sabotaging the new work.
• The paper isn't blank any more. Which means that new decisions often mean overturning old decisions, which means you need to acknowledge that it didn't used to be as good as it was.
• And the biggest thing is that there is a status quo. Something to compare everything to.

I'm not sure you can eliminate any of these issues. But, you can realize that they're there. And you can be really strict about priorities and deadlines... it's so easy to let things slip, rather than confronting the fact that you're stuck and probably afraid. Speak up, call it out... and ship!"

Go to Seth's blog....