THE WHEEL OF CREATIVITY®

Creativity is the latest buzzword of success literature. When you hear the word Creativity, where does your mind take you next? The professional world of the Arts? The hobby you pursue on the weekend? Perhaps you think of problem solving, or creativity and innovation in business. But, beneath all these external applications, I say Creativity is the gem of humanity, buried in the bedrock of our lives. It is up to us to dig it up and put it to use, in whatever ways our lives require.

This morning, I had a chat with my lifelong friend Faber about Jay Levinson’s new Guerrilla Marketing book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green. Faber credited Levinson’s first book, published in 1984, with much of his business success. What he shared next was so on-target, I had to share it with you.

First you have to know a little something about Faber. Faber and I both grew up in Houston, Texas and met as children at school. In his 20s, Faber established a drilling equipment and wholesale manufacturing company, which he continued to manage while he returned to school for his law degree. At the ripe old age of 44, he sold the business and retired with his wife Sandy and their three children to a 200-acre farm in South Central Texas. My husband and I began our married life there in a grove of old Bois d’Arc trees, which still ground us today.

Faber knows the difference between business success and success in life. After mentioning Levinson’s book, Faber added: “But the best business advice I ever got was from my father:  ‘Be available and be competent.’” Faber said his father had taught him three things from childhood, which have morphed through the course of his life into this:

1. Learn something from everyone you meet (even if it’s what you don’t want to be like).
2. Every human contact is a chance for courtesy or conflict. Choose courtesy.
3. Live your life by exercising the 7 virtues:

• Prudence. Think through your words and actions first.
• Justice. Do the right thing.
• Temperance. Control your appetites. Moderation in all things.
• Courage. Never give up.
• Faith. Be willing to have confidence in the unseen.
• Hope. Never despair. God has a path and a journey for you.
• Love. Love selflessly, expecting nothing back.

Through many years, I have watched Faber create a successful life, using these principles; but business is only a part of that. He and Sandy have sent three creative children into the world. As well as playing the bagpipes and guitar, Faber is also proficient in Spanish, ancient Greek and Gaellic. He keeps a small herd of cattle on his land, and grows organic wheat to feed them, experimenting with other crops to learn what the land will produce in his county. Sandy raises exotic chickens and owns a thriving Antique Emporium in their town of Navasota. They both serve their small community with love, in personal and nontraditional ways.

Faber and Sandy might not make page one on a Google search for Creativity, but they certainly live creative lives. And success, as they define it, has been the byproduct of their choices.

Creativity is more than any of its applications. Sometimes Creativity is invisible, embedded in the structure of our lives without appearing obvious on the surface. It is certainly a way of life and an essential element of successful life.

Where is it buried in you?

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Today, as floodwaters sweep people’s lives away in some of the Earth’s most beautiful countries, my heart is swirling with sadness, concern and gratitude. In yesterday’s New York Times, a Reuters report showed the devastation of the Countries Hit by Widespread Flooding. More than a million people have been affected by the flooding, as hundreds of dams have burst under the pressure of La Nina’s heavy rains.

Those images turned the already heartbreaking images of recent weeks more personal. Sri Lanka appeared first among them. This morning I sent a text message to our beloved Sinhalese friend Kamal, to know how he is. I still have had no response.

Here in England, the rain is pouring too. I am safe and warm. The streets are clear. Everything is working. But, with friends out there unprotected and out of touch, I cannot relax. I can only hope.

In 1994, I was visiting a friend in Los Angeles when, in the middle of the night, her dog became ill and woke us both with an episode of violent convulsions. We were only two miles from Northridge, the epicenter of a major earthquake months earlier; and I couldn’t help thinking of the Earth as a living being too. Just like my friend’s dog, I wondered if the Earth’s reactions – quakes, floods, volcanoes… – could be her body’s way to stabilize a system out of balance. Nature has her equalizing forces, as capable of destruction as creation.

Destruction is an essential part of the creative process of Life. Though this idea is consistently denied by Western cultures, older cultures recognize its necessity and Science is now proving it. Throughout Nature, from the stars in the heavens to the cells in our bodies, dissolution of one physical form releases the energy from which new forms are created. We participate in this process, but we do not control it.

It is a very American trait, I find, to place personal fulfillment (which I firmly and wholeheartedly endorse) above the common good. Self-actualization is so much a part of the fabric of American culture that its imbalances often lie hidden. And then we wonder why our systems are sweeping our lives away. I wonder if the costs of our myopia are sweeping away the lives of others we shall never meet.

In the prophetic words of an original American, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce tribe, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. Man does not weave this web of life. He is merely a strand of it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”

Today I am grateful for one of those things we in the West take for granted. Good drainage. Before today, I would have never thought to add it to my daily gratitude list; today, as I wait for a text from Kamal, I certainly will. But my personal gratitude is the shallow water in a river running much deeper through the world – the interconnectedness of all living things on the Earth.

Today, as I see the news, I am reminded of my chance passage across the English Channel last month with the wise man from India who laughed at our arrogance to think that we can ever be a match for Nature. At the end of the day, the question to ask may not be, “Will we destroy our planet?” The question may be, “Will our planet destroy us?”

The Wheel of Creativity is a look inside the creative process of Life. We do participate in the unfolding of Life, and our choices make a difference. Today it asks:

• What is the larger effect of my actions on the planet?
• How am I creating and destroying?
• What will Nature need to do to stabilize herself when I am gone?

P.S. 15 January 3:54 PM GMT.  A text from Kamal:  ”Thank u for finding about us. we haven’t any trouble from flood. Polonaruwa and baticio peoples faced it. Budusaranai. [May the Lord Buddha protect you.]“

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What’s all the fuss about? Crowds gathered in public squares. Fireworks and fairy lights. Dinner parties and B&W balls. Champagne and kisses. Every culture has its way to do it, and we have done it for thousands of years. We love to celebrate the start of another year.

This week, in the afterglow, I have been contemplating the idea of New Year’s Resolutions. It’s a big topic of conversation here in England; seems the young people generally answer yes, while the older ones just say no. I have been a big fan of the idea for years: “Rah Rah, I Resolve.” This year; it doesn’t quite fit. I’m looking for another word.

There is a bittersweet emotional mixture in letting go of the old and stepping into the new, as if there were a real threshold between them. The door is there because we say it is. And, within that frame, our feelings attach themselves to our preferences. Goals we did or didn’t achieve, people we met or lost, dreams we realized or not. We are proud… or ashamed. We delight… or regret. We respond to what we see… or we turn a blind eye.

I have always enjoyed this threshold. I like to review the year. It is place for acknowledging the value in what I have lived, to turn and smile and wave goodbye before walking through this door we have built. In turning to look back, I acknowledge what I appreciated during the year as well as what I would have done differently.

This annual threshold is also a place to stand on the hill and survey the year ahead. It is a place for setting intentions. Even if I never achieve them, intentions are an essential step in the creative process. They give direction to the wild flow of untamed creative energy coming to us and through us all the time.

In the course of writing this post, I have realized my issue with the idea of New Year’s Resolutions. It is twofold. First, the idea of a resolution feels rigid to me, a kind of teeth-gritting, white-knuckling, or-else approach to this most fluid of all substances… Time. Second, it is the timeframe itself; it is not enough.

There are two disciplines I have practiced this year (please notice I use the word practice rather than achieve), and they are daily practices.

1. Intention. In 2010, I found the lovely website Intent.com, where I experienced the value of being part of an online community created “for turning your intention into tangible action, and inspiring others to do the same.” Day after day, circumstances permitting, I stated my intention, received sincere support from strangers, and celebrated my outcomes. And I did achieve in the process.
2. Gratitude. It was during Oprah Winfrey’s interview with Sarah Ban Breathnach that I first discovered the simple and powerful idea of ending each day by stating five things I am grateful for from that day. It will change your day.

These two practices, I realized while writing this post, are the daily version of what I love to do each year. So, that, my friends, is my intention for this, another year… beginning with this, another day.

What about you?

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