Adopting and optimizing a creative mindset for business helps you stand out in your industry, connect emotionally with humans, and bring originality into your projects for your business and clients. Lee Love of Photo Mentor Academy is a proponent of creative thinking to help you become a go-to resource for what YOU AND ONLY YOU can bring.
Discover why being in demand for your creativity is a great thing and why learning the art of observation gives you the ability to See Like An Artist. Serving clients by having the ability to see outside of the box, bring fresh perspectives, and solve constraints all demand creativity. As I like to say, and have since 2015, “Creativity is an Everyday Job in Business.”
Lee Love brings a world of experience and stories from creative work on every side of the desk, behind tons of camera and video lenses, in business roles, and adds mega-tech know-how to the discussion. But his tips to help you find, expand, and explore your uniqueness and creative voice are exceptional.
I love working with Lee and have had the unique opportunity to exchange our creative thinking to bring enlightening momentum for colleagues, peers, and many learners we have mentored via his Photo Mentor Academy operations over the last several years. Seeing the massive strides, changes, and growth happening before our eyes is enriching.
This proves how valuable the creative process with a little business acumen can be for those who apply it passionately.
Many people believe creativity has no place in business. Or worse, they think only certain people are “creative.” But creativity blossoms when an environment exists for it to grow.
Creativity Allows Ideas Sharing
Keeping an open mind and allowing ideas to surface, no matter where they come from, is a great starting point for organizations to adopt a more creative mindset. On an individual level, learning to see by developing the art of observation, adopting a spirit of playfulness, and embracing curiosity as a practice are all methods to improve creative thinking.
One of the useful exercises Lee shares is to start brainstorming with no limitations. Having no constraints allows you and your team to think completely freely and no idea is out of bounds. This makes tossing ideas around more fun and it’s much easier to go a little further, perhaps to get a little more dramatic than typical.
The cross-play of more than one idea often creates the perfect innovative blend. As Lee points out, creativity isn’t as much about something new, but more likely means bringing a new twist or mix of unexpected things or ideas.
Still, the first step is being open to thinking differently about things.
Roberto Blake is an interesting example of pushing awesome creators to extend their thinking in the strategies he doles out on his YouTube Channel. His ideas to expand your thinking for how to take an original approach often involve so many levels for creating significant business results using YouTube that it blows viewers’ minds. Although he gets pushback, Roberto always has a solid and rationally complete position for every suggestion.
But what Roberto does masterfully well and on the spot in LIVES, is to bring ideas from a strategic and multi-faceted perspective, understanding there are business objectives behind the original out-of-the-box creative core.
Expand Your Creative Mind
You can feel Roberto’s attitude that the sky is the limit in many of his ideas that mimic Lee’s limitless, no-boundaries model. By starting with ideas beyond what seems possible, or with what feels out of reach, you can chip away and mold BIG IDEAS into realistic workable strategic campaigns. But Roberto is clear that most of the big stuff takes big work and hard work to go with it!
Another way to see beyond what you do, and to expand your creativity, is by practicing the art of observation. Perhaps, by pondering all possible angles for how to view something— whether a physical item or ideological examination— new information, viewpoints, and discovery lead to innovation and creativity.
“If you start to look around, you will start to see.” ~ Anne Lamott, from her book, Bird by Bird.
A fresh example from my interview with UX Designer, Philip Wallage is when he laughs at my data data data people mention, to point out how pulling the right data and connecting meaningful data points from that investigation, takes creativity, too. I never thought of the data data date people as creative. Hmmm.
But, apparently, Neil Patel– a data-driven marketing guy for as long as I can remember– made a humongous statement about the value of creativity and its importance with his company’s (NP Digital) recent purchase of Rebl House.
Per the NP Blog, with the rapid changes in AI and digital technology, leveraging the power of the creative, “is what separates your marketing from the competition.” Further, the article says “concept and vision are hard to replicate,” at least for now, even with AI.
I think I like this summation:
“The trick is finding creativity within structure.” ~ Henneke, Enchanting Marketing
Playfulness Coaxes Creativity
Finding creativity feels challenging. But placing it within a structure helps you maintain a consistent process. Then, hopefully, you don’t get analysis paralysis or stuck too tightly on perfection.
Often on Henneke’s world-celebrated writing blog, she dances with playfulness, reminding you to take the pressure off yourself for better productivity.
My colleagues remind me that “done is better than perfect” and it’s good they do! But mostly writing to me is freeing, fun, and exciting. It helps me think, organize, and review when things pile up. I’m lucky it doesn’t feel like work to me most of the time.
Having Fun Yet?
Because it’s fun to me, it feels playful to write. But playfulness is also about exploring, trying new things, and seeing new places. It’s about getting your head out of your writing or creative projects for a while. And then, coming back refreshed and filled with new ideas.
For you, it may mean reading nonfiction, staring at Netflix, or walking in the park. Just as long as it feels fun, stress-free, and takes your head to another place, it works. For me, showering, soaking in a bubble bath, or floating in the river frees my brain.
Sometimes it feels like the water pours ideas into my head like a waterfall running fast and free. It’s like playing in puddles of ideas for me, but the trick is to capture them.
Playfulness stems from curiosity too and lets you adopt “fun” over “scared” when trying new experiences or challenges. Adopting an attitude of playfulness also helps you get over yourself, allowing you to place your thoughts outside your head and concentrate on the play at hand.
If you can laugh at yourself, as I often do, it may help you approach the world, creativity, and your creative projects from a more freeing place.
Are you embracing creativity in business? Let me know…
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