Can You Learn to Be Creative?

A few weeks ago, I had the plea­sure of view­ing a speech given to the Colum­bus Met­ro­pol­i­tan Club by Artie Isaac — who among many other things, teaches Cre­ativ­ity to MBA stu­dents at The Ohio State Uni­ver­sity.  I was not present for the event, but rather caught it being run on ThinkTV in Day­ton as I was iron­ing my clothes for work.

His speech was great.

First, Mr. Isaac did an excel­lent job of using Pow­er­Point to enhance his speech by incor­po­rat­ing images and cre­ative visu­als to add his words as opposed to just read­ing off bul­let points one after another.  Bet­ter yet, what he had to say was absolutely bril­liant.  He spoke from the heart, and with real pas­sion and human emo­tion.  He used a great mix of facts, fig­ures, humor, and per­sonal nar­ra­tives to leave a last­ing impres­sion through his message.

He spoke of the need for all of us to make time to be more cre­ative, and the impor­tance of cre­ativ­ity in the mod­ern era.  He pro­vided sug­ges­tions as to how to revive your inner cre­ativ­ity, and to steal wasted time back into your life.    He also stressed the impor­tance of set­ting pri­or­i­ties and goals, and of learn­ing to find more flow in daily life.  The best part was that every­thing he rec­om­mended was sim­ple.  The hard part is in the doing it.   Ask him if peo­ple can learn to be cre­ative, and he would reply with a resound­ing yes.  After hear­ing him present, I would have to agree.

At the end of the hour long pre­sen­ta­tion, I found myself think­ing more about ways that I could bring more cre­ativ­ity into my own life.  I also was thank­ful that I hap­pened to ran­domly stum­ble across his pre­sen­ta­tion at a time when my tele­vi­sion is nor­mally not even turned on.  Chalk that one up for good luck.

Any­way, you should def­i­nitely take the time to watch his pre­sen­ta­tion, and if you enjoy it, visit his web site — Net Cot­ton Con­tent.  On his site, Artie lists numer­ous books about cre­ativ­ity, think­ing, life, mind­ful­ness, mar­ket­ing, and busi­ness as well as a copy of the syl­labus for the class he teaches.  I down­loaded a copy, and I am actu­ally going to do some of the assign­ments myself so as to feed my “cre­ative pet.”

Thanks Artie, for offer­ing me inspi­ra­tion and mak­ing at least one day of iron­ing 100 % Cot­ton pants enjoyable.

Net Cot­ton Con­tent / On Life and Mar­ket­ing, Cre­ativ­ity and Ethics