July 20, 2006By Keith Rosen, MCC
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Be Creative
It is three p.m. in the afternoon on a lovely fall day. You are on your way to work. As you walk by a school, you notice all of the children playing outside. You pause and watch them for a second. A flood of emotions and memories intoxicate your mind, as you remember yourself as a child. You admire their youthful exuberance, their unlimited supply of energy, their fervor for freedom, their passion for knowledge, their desire to learn and their boundless creativity.
Become a create freak rather than a control freak.
You listen to their conversations as they play. Some are talking about the planets they are visiting. Others are envisioning the castle in which they are playing in. They see this vividly, down to every detail, including the moat around the castle. Some pretend to be presidents, firemen, astronauts even doctors.
How creative children are! How powerful their minds are. Full of ideas with no inhibitions or limitations to restrain them. Children have the ability to visualize or imagine their true dreams. They bring their dreams into their reality and making them real.
The most creative time in a person’s life is from birth to the age of around eleven years old. This is the time when they are not constrained by rules or regulations. Children are not concerned with what is supposedly acceptable in thought or behavior and what is not, what is practically right or wrong, proper or improper, fact or fiction.
In a child’s eyes, there exists no boundaries. There is nothing to regulate them or inhibit their level of creativity. Everything that children see is new and exiting. They are constantly absorbing information and expanding on their ideas. The more they learn, the more children want to express themselves. They want to share what they have learned. They have no fear of rejection, of being wrong or of the unknown. Why? Because they have not experienced it yet!
The years begin to pass. The people in a child’s life, such as teachers and parents, begin to instill their values and ideals in the minds of their children.
- “No, that is not appropriate for a child of twelve years old (or fifteen or seventeen, and so on).”
- ”No, you can’t act like that anymore.”
- “No, you can’t spend all of your time playing. It is time to start thinking about your future and get serious.”
- “You can’t do that (wear that, say that).”
- “That is wrong.”
- “Doing that is unacceptable.”
- “No, Santa and the Tooth Fairy really don’t exist.”
As a child gets older, they begin to experience embarrassment, being wrong, having people put down their ideas and dreams and punishment for doing the, “wrong thing.”
The creative boy now becomes a man. His eyes no longer see the dreams and visions he had as a boy. He becomes serious; more focused on the perceived role to play in society and the pressures from his family. He concentrates on what he thinks he wants and needs. His thoughts and desires that he had as a child become clouded with every passing day, only to be replaced with more and more responsibilities. A mortgage, a job, a family.
He begins to lose sight of what was especially important in his life. The simple things. Freedom of expression, having fun, peace of mind, living simply, appreciating his surroundings, treating every day as a new adventure and not getting caught up in the manutia that blinds us from appreciating the beauty around us. All of the visions and dreams are put on a shelf where they begin to collect dust.
The man begins to forget what it was like to be creative, to dream and to imagine. Lack of creativity breeds complacency. He now becomes just like everyone else; another face, another number.
Imagine if we never lost our creative edge. Imagine what would be possible if we didn’t feel compelled to have to change, due to other people’s beliefs, perceptions or rules. Now imagine if you had the ability to share your visions and dreams with those around you.
Before you assist a customer in opening up their mind, you must first open up your own. Know what it is like to sit on a cloud. Can you see yourself sitting way up in the sky? Do you smell the crisp air? As you look down, do you see the whole world? Imagine there is nothing to restrain you. Look at the root of the word creative. Create. Take action to create your own destiny. Now, take the customer with you.
Anyone can study and memorize a presentation. Ask someone why they actually purchased from you. Will they say it was because you had the most beneficial package? They might. However, most of the time they will say it was because of you.