Dan ShorerEmpowering your creativity and becoming the person you were meant to be.

Winning the creativity war

Winning the Creativity war

Table of ContentsWord did not find any entries for your table of contents.In your document, select the words to include in the table of contents, and then on the Home tab, under Styles, click a heading style. Repeat for each heading that you want to include, and then insert the table of contents in your document. To manually create a table of contents, on the Document Elements tab, under Table of Contents, point to a style and then click the down arrow button. Click one of the styles under Manual Table of Contents, and then type the entries manually.

IntroductionSo you tried writing, and decided that Pushkin did it better. So why bother, Right?So you sat looking at that blank canvas for hours, dropped some colour on it, stepped back and - heck, Picasso at 8 could and did better. So why bother, right?You don't write like Pound, or Shelley, or Nâzım Hikmet, or Saul Bellow. Neither did any one of those, write like anyone else. They tried hard not to.Creativity is your answer to the inner quest that wishes to be distinguished, not distinct.Never try to find yourself in the works of others, shape your creativity through your own words, your own paintings, your own vision.Don't listen to academics, policy-makers or art- educators who feel the need to deploy a range of claims about creativity yet all they are doing is being creative about creativity, trying to convince you that they know better, that you should shy away and shut up.Well, don’t shut up!Don’t abide by any one’s opinion about the Elysian Fields where only the gifted and talented are allowed to roam. Do you know that John Carver’s short stories were refused by some twenty publishers?Do you know that Beethoven was booed and whistled at the premiere of the fifth?Just allow yourself to be yourself, distil your senses until they shine more than any sun, allow your vision to reflect your inner reality into lines, colours, rhymes, rhythms, or just hums…Don't hold back. Let loose your creativity – You have it. We all do.I remember my son's first complete sentence (he was 30 months old): “Look, Dad, the sun is going to sleep and covers itself with clouds.” Many years of schooling, uprooted that wonderful creator.A son of a friend, when asked why he jumps over water puddles, answered: “because they eat up the tallest buildings'”Never mind what you said as a toddler, blank out the years of demagogic education

2

that always knew better than you what was important; allow that miraculous mirror - your dynamic mind -- to reflect what it sees hidden.Don't wait until life gets out of the way. Just do it! Let go, share your creative self through your poetry, your art, your photography or in any other form.

3

The life you were supposed to live.

I hated every minute of training, but I said, 'Don't quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.' Muhammad Ali

We all have two lives: the one we live and the one we were supposed to live. Between the two stand our arch-foe Resistance.

Remember that treadmill you bought only to see it turn into a cloth hanger? Resistance.Remember the diet you started and quit? Resistance.Remember your New Year resolutions, and here it is September? Resistance.Remember you promised to crusade for the planet? Resistance.

Were you ever visited late at night by that person you were meant to be? The person who is carrying out the work you were meant to accomplish, realizing the potential that was yours to fulfill?

Are you a writer who doesn’t write?Are you an entrepreneur who doesn’t start his dream-venture?Do you have a virtual box with all your dream stacked up and collecting dust?

Then Resistance has visited you too.

The good news is, you are not alone. Resistance is paying constant visits to millions of people. The bad news is, Resistance is the most toxic force on the planet.Resistance is a plague. It brings more unhappiness than poverty, unrequited love, disease, or even erectile dysfunction.

You have been endowed by your unique Genius (In ancient Rome, the genius was the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of a person). Our genius is that inner compass that guides you to your calling. A writer writes with his genius; an artist paints with hers; An entrepreneurs launch their start-up with their genius. Your genius is where your soul sits. It’s the sun that rises every morning of your life.

Every sun casts a shadow, and genius’s shadow is Resistance.

Close your eyes and listen to your soul calling you to reach out and realize your potential. Resistance puts up all it potent arsenal to hush that call up.In Akira Kurasawa’s movie Ikiru, Mr. Watanabe suddenly finds that he has terminal cancer. He vows to make his final days meaningful. His attempts to communicate his anguish to his son and daughter-in-law lead only to heartbreak. Finally, inspired by an unselfish co-worker, he turns his efforts to bringing happiness to others by building a playground in a dreary slum neighborhood. When the park is finally completed, he is able to face death with peaceful acceptance. If it were a western movie, the cancer would have gone into remission.

4

Do we have to stare death in the face to make us stand up and confront Resistance?

If Resistance were to be eliminated by some magic wand, shrinks would be out of business, prisons would stand empty, the alcohol and tobacco industries would collapse, drug dealers will go back to grow oranges, domestic abuse would become extinct, as would addiction, obesity, migraines, and dandruff.

I am sure that right at this point, there is a small voice piping up within you, telling you as it has ten thousand times before, to fulfill your calling, the one that was assigned to you and to no one else. Yet, unless I am completely mistaken, you’re no closer to taking action on it than you were yesterday or will be tomorrow. Show Resistance the smallest weakness and it’ll burry you.

5

Defining the Enemy“Your enemy can be your best teacher” Dalai Lama.

6

When can you expect Resistance

Here is a short chaotic list that tells you when you are likely to get an unannounced visit by Resistance:

1. You are pursuing a calling in writing, painting, music, film, dance, or any creative art, no matter how marginal.

2. You are about to launch an entrepreneurial venture, for profit or otherwise.3. You are about to start a diet.4. You undertake a program designed to overcome an addiction.5. You think about furthering your education.6. You have decided to change a pattern of thought within yourself.7. You have decided to participate in a charity you strongly believe in.8. You decide to get married.9. You decide to get divorced.10. You decide to take a resolute stand in the face of adversity.

Any act that rejects immediate gratification in favor of long-term growth, health or integrity, will have Resistance all over you. If it’s important to your inner self to do it, it’s as important for Resistance to stop you.

7

Characteristics of Resistance“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

8

Resistance is InvisibleYou can’t see, touch, hear or smell Resistance. You can only feel it. It’s an energy that radiates from a work-in-potential. It aims to distract us, and prevent us form doing our work.

9

Resistance is withinResistance is not a peripheral opponent. Resistance resides in and arises from within. Resistance is the enemy within.

10

Resistance is InsidiousResistance will tell you anything to keep you away from your work. It will reason with you like a lawyer or will put a ticking bomb in front of your face. Resistance has no conscience. Like a trained politician, it will pledge anything to get your trust, the double-cross you. Resistance is always lying.

11

Resistance is ImpersonalResistance is not out to get you personally. It couldn’t care less about who you are. Resistance is a force of nature. You don’t expect the rain to fall on you exclusively, the night to fall on you and nobody else but you. Resistance acts objectively.

12

Resistance is choosy. Resistance can be used as a compass. You can navigate by Resistance. The more important a call or action is to you, to the core of your being, the more Resistance you’ll feel toward pursuing it.

13

Resistance doesn’t take prisoners.Resistance isn’t out to maim, wound or disable. Resistance aims to kill. It targets your genius, your soul or whatever you want to call that unique denominator that was given to you and to no one else; that special gift that makes you whole, and different, and creative, and YOU!

14

Resistance is Fueled by FearResistance is a drone; it has no strength of its own. You feed it with the power of your fear. Master that fear and you conquer Resistance.

15

Resistance only blocks you when you aim highIf you’re serving a higher purpose (let’s say, working for peace in the middle east, or for saving animals in danger of distinction, or for the Mother Teresa Foundation), and you are thinking of bolting to launch a career in telemarketing, Resistance will give you a free pass. Maybe even throw in a lottery win to pay for your trip. But if you think of giving up telemarketing and pursue a calling in the art, or launch an innovative enterprise that will eliminate illiteracy – Resistance is there to stop you.

16

The closer you are to the finish line, the more powerful is Resistance John Steinbeck hated to get close to finishing a book. He wrote: “To finish is sadness to a writer, a little death. He puts the last word down and it is done. But it isn't really done. The story goes on and leaves the writer behind, for no story is ever done.” It was Resistance that whispered those words in his ears. But Steinbeck was a professional. A professional knows that every step in the project, takes energy and resilience. A professional never spends all her resilience. She always keeps some for later. It’s resilience that conquers Resistance. Keep it in mind.

17

Resistance and the drama queenCreating a soap opera in our lives is a sure sign that Resistance is in residence. Why travel the world to conquer the Everest if you can get as much attention by bringing home a boyfriend with a prison record? Trouble call for compassion, and compassion is always alert to Resistance’s knocking on the door. Dad get s drunk, Mom joins an Ashram, Rebecca comes to synagogue with a tattoo depicting Jesus and Muhammad kissing passionately, and little John send an SMS from parts unknown announcing he has joined the Foreign Legion. And it works – Nobody get a damn thing done. Ill health is trouble. Alcoholism and drug abuse is trouble. Compulsive screwing up is trouble. Benign foibles like jealousy, chronic lateness, blasting techno music from your car speaker at 2:00 am is trouble. Anything that draws attention through pain-free or artificial means is trouble. Resistance is rejoicing. Her job is done.

18

Resistance and UnhappinessResistance is here. How do we know it? Firs, unhappiness. A low-grade misery veils over everything. We feel restless, bored, unwanted. We can’t get no satisfaction. We feel unspecified guilt. We want to go back to bed; we want to get up and party. We feel unloved and unlovable. We hate our lives. We hate ourselves. At this point Resistance throws the inauguration party. At this point vices kick in. Dope, adultery, web surfing, a shopping spree. Nothing works.Resistance is now about to become clinical. Depression sets in. Aggression. Dysfunction. And what makes it so tricky is that we live in a consumer culture that’s acutely aware of this unhappiness and has massed al it profit-seeking artillery to exploit it. You must enact your own internal revolution. Erupt into a disruptive insurrection. Grab onto your skills, lower your head and free yourselves from the tyranny of consumer culture Resistance begets unhappiness, that begets quest and thirst, that beget slavery to consumerism. Don’t forget that You Are Creative and that there is a club that will help you overthrow the programming of advertising, movies, video games, and all the other mesmerizing distractions that have been hypnotizing us from the cradle. Join the club and unplug yourself from the grid of recognizing that you’ll never cure your restlessness by contributing your disposable income to the bottom line of Bullshitl.com, but only by doing your work.

19

Resistance and RationalizationRationalization is a high-ranking general in Resistance’s army. Its job is to keep you from feeling the shame you would feel if you truly faced what a coward you are for not doing your work. General Rationalization has a Lieutenant General. His own sidekick. It’s the part of our psyche that actually believes what rationalization tells us.

It’s one thing to lie to ourselves. It’s quite another to believe it.

20

Resistance can be beaten

If Resistance couldn’t be beaten, there would be no Fifth Symphony, no Hamlet, no Duomo in Milan, no David in Florence. Defeating Resistance is painful, long and exhausting. It’s like giving birth. It seems absolutely impossible, and yet – women have been pulling it off successfully for over fifty million years.

So now we come to the war itself. The war of creativity and the tactics you need to win it.

21

Part Two

It’s time to win!

22

A champion is afraid of losing. Everyone else is afraid of winning.

Billie Jean KingAmerican former World No. 1 professional tennis player.

23

Winning the war of creativity, reclaiming your mind.

Sometimes it seems like your mind just runs wild with abandon. And to make matters worse, it seems like everyone and everything around you is constantly fighting your attention.So, how do you win the battle for your mindset, without losing the war of creativity?

Did you know there is a battle being waged for your mind? It’s an inner creative war — a war of nerves and neurons — and you’re the leader of the insurgent force trying to create your life’s work.

If you want to win, you’ll need to understand: the battlefield on which you fight the enemy forces arrayed against you trying to destroy your creative vision how to fight an unconventional war against these forces so you can start,

finish and ship your great project.

In other words, you must learn to fight like a Brain Map Insurgent.

A warning: This war is a lifetime of creative battles. There are no shortcuts, tricks, or magical genies. Only you can do the hard, creative work, day in and day out, to create your life’s work.

You may (and probably will) experience obstacles, setbacks, and failure.

Still here?

Good. Let’s get started.

24

The WarzoneYour brain is composed of billions of neurons.These neurons form complex networks where they send signals back and forth to communicate important information. They’re responsible for how the brain functions, how we experience touch, taste, and other senses, and — most importantly — how we experience pain and pleasure.

25

The EnemyThe Enemy is the Army of Bad Habits you’ve accumulated over the years, building and expanding its empire one brain map territory at a time.For most people, the Army of Bad Habits controls most of our brain map space.Instead of losing weight through consistent, healthy eating, we binge on ice cream and give up altogether (I‘ve already broken the diet once, so…); instead of writing every morning, we sleep in (I’ll catch up tonight…); instead of bootstrapping that business to profitability, the first batch of products is imperfect and we scrap the project and move onto something else (that other business idea seems easier and more lucrative anyway…).If you don’t fight back, the Army of Bad Habits will dominate your life and keep you from creating your life’s work.If you thought this inner creative war didn’t exist, think again.

26

Lovers or winners?The word amateur stems from the Latin root “amare” meaning “to love”. The conventional interpretation is that the amateur pursues his calling out of love, while the professional does it for money. Right?Wrong!If the amateur loves the game so much, why does he pursue it as a part-time sideline? Is there something so noble in his “real” vocation?

The champion, the professional, plays for keeps. He loves his game - his art, his business, his relationship – so much that his life is dedicated to it. Resistance and its army of bad habit hate it when we turn professional, they feel threatened when we act like champions. And as they are not for or against us personally, they go to haunt some one else.

Only when the muse strikes

A journalist once asked Somerset Maugham if he wrote on a schedule or only when struck by inspiration. “I write only when inspiration strikes,” he replied. “Fortunately it strikes every morning at nine o’clock sharp.”

That’s a professional. That’s a champion.

Maugham set his muse to a tight and precise schedule. He understood that performing the mundane physical act of sitting down to work, he sets in motion a mysterious but infallible sequence of events that calls inspiration to its post of duty, and the Muse, the Genius, or the writing hand of the champion, whatever you prefer calling it, synchronize their watch with his.

Operation “You Are Creative” is again on track.

A new day, a new battle

Yesterday was a good day. You set down with all the right intention. You spent the scheduled time on your book, your enterprise, your relationship. You acted like the champion you really are.

You wake up with a gnawing sensation of failure. Fear is there to play havoc with your intestines. You are busy fighting fear, and Resistance, because you feel that the good guys will make sure that your work is done.

You start the game of “I’ve got take care of this first”. You look at bills, check the bank, you make sure the kids leave for school.The clock is ticking, but your “priority list” (a minor general in the arm of bad habits) is pressing.

27

Here is my take on the law of Prioritizing:a) You must know the difference between what is urgent and what is importantb) You must do what’ s important first.

Your work, allowing your creativity to guide you – that’s important.So, it’s nine o’clock – the muse strikes!

When the evening comes, and you’re content. Your work for the day is done. But tomorrow you’ll wake up to face Resistance and the army of bad habits again.Steel yourself!

Fake it till you make itGarry Kasparov and his long-time rival Anatoly Karpov—two of the greatest chess players of all-time—took their respective seats around the chess board. The 1990 World Chess Championship was about to begin.The two men would play 24 games to decide the champion with the highest scoring player being declared the World Chess Champion. In total, the match would stretch for three months with the first 12 games taking place in New York and the final 12 games being played in Lyons, France.Kasparov started off well, but soon began to make mistakes. He lost the seventh game and let multiple victories slip away during the first half of the tournament. After the first 12 games, the two men left New York with the match tied at 6-6. The New York Times reported that “Mr. Kasparov had lost confidence and grown nervous in New York.” If Kasparov was going to retain his title as the best in the world, it was going to take everything he had.A friend asked Garry how he’s going to play to overcome his loss of confidence. He answered: I’ll play the moves I would have played if I felt confident. Kasparov lost only two of the final 12 game. By letting his action boost up his confidence Kasparov used his fear to overcome his fear.A professional. A champion.

28