Simply Brilliant: Powerful Techniques to Unlock Your Creativity and Spark New Ideas
Today, most people still believe that some of us are born creative and others are not—and that’s just the way it is. However, our creativity is not simply inherited, like brown eyes or blonde hair. Most people also still believe that right-brained people are more creative and left-brained people are more analytical, even though research in the past five years has shown that, in fact, we use both sides of our brain when we are being creative. We use both sides of the brain to fire our creative juices. Many people associate creativity only with artists, writers, designers, and filmmakers, not programmers, for example, or lawyers, marketers, and accountants. But these are exactly the people who imagined online auction marketplaces, simplified legal services and forms, connected people with cars with those needing to be somewhere else, and found an easier way to do accounting for small businesses, creating eBay, LegalZoom, Uber, and Quick- Books, respectively. The fact is, everyone is creative, and you can develop your inherent creative skills just like you would any other skill. You can find a solid and insightful review of Simply Brilliant here by Bob Morris. |
For eighteen years, I worked with big brands and startups as a marketing and branding expert and, with three other partners, built a $1 billion integrated marketing agency with more than 10,000 employees. I worked around “creative” people most of my life, but my belief—and our company’s premise—was that everyone in the agency was creative.
Over the past five years, I have taught a course on Creativity and Innovation as part of the Entrepreneurship Program at San Diego State University. Before I taught this particular course, I researched how others taught or introduced creativity into their company culture. That included professors at some of the top universities in the world who sent me their syllabi and leaders at companies like Pixar and Disney, where creativity was high. (Disney has its own head of Creativity Training.) I could not find the perfect book to use in teaching the course so I wrote Simply Brilliant.
And what I learned is that creativity isn’t something some people have and others don’t. We all have it. But we need a growth mindset, one that believes we can learn and grow our intelligence beyond what we were born with. Want more insights on why I wrote the book and what you can get out of it? Listen to a radio interview here.
My closing thought to is this: you were not born to do or be anything. You want to be more creative? Then take the steps to learn how to be purposely more creative and hopefully, Simply Brilliant.
Over the past five years, I have taught a course on Creativity and Innovation as part of the Entrepreneurship Program at San Diego State University. Before I taught this particular course, I researched how others taught or introduced creativity into their company culture. That included professors at some of the top universities in the world who sent me their syllabi and leaders at companies like Pixar and Disney, where creativity was high. (Disney has its own head of Creativity Training.) I could not find the perfect book to use in teaching the course so I wrote Simply Brilliant.
And what I learned is that creativity isn’t something some people have and others don’t. We all have it. But we need a growth mindset, one that believes we can learn and grow our intelligence beyond what we were born with. Want more insights on why I wrote the book and what you can get out of it? Listen to a radio interview here.
My closing thought to is this: you were not born to do or be anything. You want to be more creative? Then take the steps to learn how to be purposely more creative and hopefully, Simply Brilliant.