Creativity and Innovation--the Base of Knowledge

Everyone loves to be creative, and we all have often said to ourselves "How did they think of that?" when we marvel at the end result of the creativity of others.   One large part of creativity that we often forget, however, is the need to have a base of knowledge in the area where we want to be creative.  Einstein was able to develop the theory of relativity  because of his extensive knowledge of mathematics and physics.   If you see an elite athlete--for example Barcelona's Lionel Messi--he is able to do incredible things on the soccer field.  But he has also played for thousands and thousands of hours since the age of 4.   Books like the Talent Code or Outliers both talk about the rule of "deep practice" or 10,000 hours--these are all reminders that if we want to experience the creative jumps, it is our responsibility to immerse ourselves in the subject matter area that we want to master.  This will mean mistakes, but we will have an opportunity to make a correction, and improve.  When we have started down this path, some of the different tools that I will discuss in our next few blogs (mind mapping, visualization, dream state programming) all become available to us in order to make these quantum leaps we desire.

Danny