What Box?^®

Why is it that in our society individuals have such a difficult time balancing their left and their right? It seems that we always have a tendency to be either left or right dominate. I am not talking about politics here. I am talking about the left and right side of our brain. There is no easy answer that is for sure.

The right side of your brain is quite possibly your most powerful creativity tool, and yet a great majority of us are stuck on the left side. This is the logical part of the brain that focuses on linear thinking, reading, planning, scheduling, and organizing. Perhaps so many of us operate from this side of our brain because our society tends to respect and appreciate the left-brain capabilities. Left-brain thinking is just more predictable and controllable; at least we like to think this, in a left-brain kind of way.

The right brain is where our non-verbal ideations take place, where imagery, dreaming and imagination flourish. Our right brain helps us come up with out-of-the-box ideas and solutions. It is where our artistic and creative side resides.

“The creative person is both more primitive and more cultivated, more destructive, a lot madder and a lot saner, than the average person.” Frank Barron

Children are much more creative and right brain centered. In fact, it is just more natural for them. Children are like a blank artist’s canvas, with lots of white open space for them to think and imagine anything they can dream up.

Yet, why is it that we have a tendency to move from our right brain thinking as children to left brain thinking as adults? As children grow up many times their creative side is not acknowledged and appreciated. As a result they move to the left side of their brains which is where they get they get the most praise and affirmation. As a result, their creative side is not used and becomes atrophied.

You need both sides of your brain working in harmony to reach your full potential. This is no small task and is still something that we all have the ability to do if we are willing to work hard enough at it.

“Creativity represents a miraculous coming together of the uninhibited energy of the child with its apparent opposite and enemy, the sense of order imposed on the disciplined adult intelligence.” Norman Podhoretz

As a visual thinker I am more prone to balancing my left and right brain thinking, because to draw out my ideas on paper I naturally utilize both hemispheres of my brain. You can do it too!

Many people experience that there is a tendency for left-brain thinkers to be put in charge of approving ideas and setting the direction for the organizations and businesses they work with. This can result in a lack of creativity and innovation. Then these same businesses and organizations wonder why they are not surviving through our changing world. GM is a perfect example. Just think. If they would have let more right brained people have a seat at the decision making table like Toyota or Nissan has done, perhaps GM would have been able to create cars that people wanted to buy.

Just the same, I am a dominantly right-brained person living in a world of ideas, solutions, visualizations, and imaginings. This can be a challenge, because at times I can come up with ideas with ease, and yet I lack the left-brain deep analytical thinking necessary to understand if the idea has the juice necessary to move it past an idea into an active and sustainable endeavor. This is why knowing your strengths and weaknesses is a key to success in our ever-changing world

I recently wrote about being a team player and the skills required in collaborating with others. To balance my right and left-brain thinking I partner with left-brain thinkers to enhance my ability to generate and succeed at implementing my ideas.
As an example, to run my ideations by a left-brain thinker, I partner with Ted Cundiff, a banker at SpiritBank. The great thing about Ted is that he appreciates the type of thinking I have as a right-brain thinker and understands that right-brain thinking is not one of his core strengths. He respects and embraces my way of thinking.

“Regardless of differences, we strive shoulder to shoulder… ‘Teamwork can be summed up in five short words: ‘We believe in each other.’ Author Unknown

By integrating his left-brain thinking with my right-brain thinking we create a balance that would not be possible if I were go it alone. It is inevitable that the original idea will only be improved and elevated through our different thinking styles. In the end, the idea may not be a viable one, but with both our brain thinking styles working on the idea we are able to look at it from many angles. In some cases we come up with an idea that is totally different from the original, but one that has a better chance of succeeding. I place a high value on the times when Ted and I are able to brainstorm together.

So if you are left-brained thinker, go out and find yourself a right-brained thinker who respects your style of thinking. In the end you may very well find that as a result the outcome will become more creative and innovative. And if you are right-brained thinker, go out and find yourself a left-brain thinker who respects your creative side supporting you to be more objective and time-sensitive.

In the end we are utilizing both our brains throughout each and every day. The challenge is to balance the left and right in an effort to reach our full potential.

“The mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.” Oliver Wendell Holmes

It’s about time we balance the left and right don’t you think?

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create yourself.

Please join me on August 28th, 5:30pm – 7pm for the launch of my latest book The Seeker, Discovering and Living your Life’s Purpose. The launch will take place at Dwelling Spaces Downtown Tulsa, 119 South Detroit Avenue. I will be conducting a short visual thinking program designed to support you to think more meaningfully about your life purpose. Hope to see you there.

Have you ever noticed that as a society we seem to praise individuals for their efforts and success? We tend to give all the credit for a job well done to one person, whether that is for starting a new company or having a winning football team.

Why is this? Could it be that as humans we do not think of ourselves as team players and we don’t naturally play well on teams? Or maybe it is that we are so ego driven that we like one person to be recognized so that we can project ourselves into the same position.

What ever it is, I can assure you of one thing. Nothing of great importance or anything that has ever been created has been done without a team.

“Individual commitment to a group effort – that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” Vince Lombardi

Take a breath and think about this for a minute.

My Mother likes to say, “There is no ‘I’ in ‘We.’” The truth of the matter is that it has taken me some time to figure this out and I am still learning how it works in my life.

The question is, “Are you a team player?” If not, then you are not reaching your full potential and supporting others to reach theirs.

What do you want to create in your life? Whatever it is you will need a team. More importantly, you will need to have your team buy into your dream and then work together with you to make it a reality. This is no small task.

Everything I have achieved in my life has been built on the back of a team. Everything Bill Gates has built in his life has been built on the back of a team. Everything any President has achieved has been built by teams of people. No one in history has accomplished anything of importance without a team.

Every single What Box? that is published takes a team. Alice Fenton supports improving the first draft; Kristen Bergman helps edit the updated version; Mike Williams takes our work and formats it so it fits into the pages you are reading now; and finally, Brad Vernon takes the final product and uploads it to the www.whatbox.info Webpage. I could not write or publish my writings if it were not for a team of people helping me to support the creation of a quality product.

Being a team player and working with a team will enable you to transform your visions and dreams into reality.

“Teamwork is the ability to work together toward a common vision. The ability to direct individual accomplishment toward organizational objectives. It is the fuel that allows common people to attain uncommon results.” Andrew Carnegie

Whenever I am engaged in taking on a client project, or when I am working to start-up a new start-up, I focus on identifying who is going to be on the team. Here are some of the things I think about as I select members of a team, and the qualities that I look for in good team players
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Identify Team Needs
What type of team players are you in need of to move your endeavor forward? Do you need financial specialists, government specialists, strategic thinkers, connectors, marketers, or technology people? You have to know who you need to help move the endeavor from an idea to reality. Make a list of the type of talent you need as a first step.

Start with Friends and Family
When starting to build your team, look towards your friends and family first. These are the people who have the closet connection to you. Over the years I have built so many teams that I have my friends and family team built in and can start-up any type of endeavor with just a few calls. Who in your friends and family network are ready to be part of a team?

Create a Structure and Clear Roles
Nothing is more likely to kill a team then lack of a clear structure and well-defined roles. Everyone needs to know what is expected of them, including time commitments, expectations, and what they are being asked to do. Make sure that team members agree to the structure and the role that they will be playing. Once you have agreement, things will run much more smoothly and the individuals will work together as a team.

“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” Henry Ford

Always be Grateful for Team Support
Everyone likes to be recognized for a job well done. Make sure to thank those supporting you often and with sincerity. This can make a huge difference. It just takes an email or a pat on the back saying, “Hey, I appreciate you and all your efforts.” Take the time to be grateful and don’t take your team for granted.

This is a short list of ways to start building a team. There are many more ideas on team building. Take some time to search the Internet for more.

Being at team player starts with you. No one can do it for you.

Where do you want to go? To get there, start by building a team and the sky becomes the limit.

“Teamwork is so important that it is virtually impossible for you to reach the heights of your capabilities or make the money that you want without becoming very good at it.” Brian Tracy

Let me know what you think.

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create yourself.

Imagine having an endless supply of great ideas at your fingertips.

Imagine reaching your greatest aspirations.

Imagine becoming all you want to be.

It takes courage to push ourselves to a place where we have never gone before, to test our limits and to break through the barriers that hold us back. Think about the lion in the 1939 classic film “The Wizard of OZ.” The lion, desperately seeking the courage to face life’s challenges, is constantly looking outside himself for courage. In all actuality, the lion had an unlimited reservoir of courage already there; only he was unable to see that truth about himself.

“Every man has his own courage, and is betrayed because he seeks in himself the courage of other persons.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

Just like the lion, we have everything we need inside of ourselves to become all we can be. As Mike Munn, my good friend and former head physicist for Lockheed says, “You know more than you know you know.” I would add, “and can be anything you want to be.” The challenge for us is to look inward for our strength to stretch and grow creatively instead of looking to the outside world for that strength. Too many times we are held back because we buy into negative outside influences that don’t encourage or support different thinking, creative ideas, inventions, or solutions.

In my life I have experienced many fears about being a writer. Growing up, I was challenged by traditional learning institutions. This challenge was compounded by my dyslexia. Writing for me has been torturous at best. As a CEO, my Board insisted that I take writing courses to improve my skills because they were concerned that my “unique” style would not be embraced by the corporate world.

For the past 15 years I have been visually representing concepts for a number of creativity books instead of putting my thoughts and ideas in writing. Communicating visually is easy for me while expressing myself in the written word is much more difficult and time consuming.

Several years ago I decided that there were important things that I had learned in my life that would be of value to others and I a strong desire to share these lessons was growing stronger. One of the means of communicating these learnings that made sense to me was to write them down, so the idea of putting my stories into a book made perfect sense.

Writing my first book was a major challenge to say the least. Coming up with the stories concepts was easy. What was hard was figuring out how to put these stories into words so I could meaningfully share the lessons I had learned. Would people really understand what I was writing about? My experience was that they understood what I communicated visually and now to translate these visual expressions into the written word. What I discovered in the process was expressing myself in words was just another way for me to embrace the unknown and find the courage to reach for my full potential.

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” Raymond Lindquist

What area of your life is holding you back from reaching what you want to do or want to be? What is it that you are not doing that you would like to be doing? What do you want to create for yourself?

When we find the courage to go where we have never been before it does not mean that all of the sudden insecurity, fear and anxiety do not exist. Instead we consciously make the decision to move through these feelings as constructively and creatively as we possibly can.

By taking leaps of faith and stepping over the edge into the unknown we stretch our visible and hidden skills to new limits and promote exercising our creative potential.

So the next time you find yourself saying, “Oh I can’t do that!” or “That idea is way to over the top!” take time and remind yourself “Hey, I know more than I know I know and can do anything I decide to do.”

“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.” Author Unknown

Believe in yourself and in your abilities and you can accomplish great things.

Tools for Exercising Your Creativity Muscles

Sketch and Doodle Your Thinking
One of the single greatest ways I have found to generate new ideas and overcome challenges is to pick up a pencil or pen and start doodling my thoughts. This does not mean you have to possess exceptional drawing skills to draw out your ideas. Stick figures along with simple images have an amazing power to jog your brain consciously and subconsciously, supporting you to reach your goals. These doodles are for your eyes only if you choose. Let go of your judgment about artistic merit and instead think of your doodles as a tool to generate new and winning ideas. We have all heard about the idea that was drawn on a napkin and became the next big thing. What idea do you have to draw out of yourself?

Take A Risk
When you are not failing every now and again you are at risk of stagnating yourself and your creativity. When you take a chance you exercise your creativity muscles and continue to strengthen it. Stop doing new things and you lose the creative muscle of risk. Go ahead, take a risk and find something new to do and see where it takes you.

No More Excuses
We have all heard the saying “Just do it!” Sounds so simple doesn’t it? When I started writing the “What Box?” series of books I had to give up on all the excuses that were keeping me from reaching and fulfilling my aspirations. In many cases it takes even more creativity to remove the excuses that hold us back than it does to develop the idea in the first place. What excuses are you holding onto?

How can you remove these excuses and become the creative person you were meant to be?

Remember, anything is possible when you believe it is so.

Let me know what you think.

Until next week, remember the only boxes that exist are the ones you create yourself.