Creativity above all else will keep you relevant
Creativity is what it takes to be a success. I often get funny looks when I talk about creativity in the workplace. It’s a habit that is formed over time and as an artist you find the support for creative habits much more readily with your peers. I came across this quote from Twyla Tharp’s book today. You can read the first chapter for free here.
After so many years, I’ve learned that being creative is a full-time job with its own daily patterns. That’s why writers, for example, like to establish routines for themselves. The most productive ones get started early in the morning, when the world is quiet, the phones aren’t ringing, and their minds are rested, alert, and not yet polluted by other people’s words. They might set a goal for themselves — write fifteen hundred words, or stay at their desk until noon — but the real secret is that they do this every day. In other words, they are disciplined. Over time, as the daily routines become second nature, discipline morphs into habit.
It’s the same for any creative individual, whether it’s a painter finding his way each morning to the easel, or a medical researcher returning daily to the laboratory. The routine is as much a part of the creative process as the lightning bolt of inspiration, maybe more. And this routine is available to everyone.
Creativity is not just for artists. It’s for businesspeople looking for a new way to close a sale; it’s for engineers trying to solve a problem; it’s for parents who want their children to see the world in more than one way. Over the past four decades, I have been engaged in one creative pursuit or another every day, in both my professional and my personal life. I’ve thought a great deal about what it means to be creative, and how to go about it efficiently. I’ve also learned from the painful experience of going about it in the worst possible way. I’ll tell you about both. And I’ll give you exercises that will challenge some of your creative assumptions — to make you stretch, get stronger, last longer. After all, you stretch before you jog, you loosen up before you work out, you practice before you play. It’s no different for your mind.
You can set aside time every day for the practice of being more creative. Would you consider introducing this idea to your practice of Real Estate? How about your practice in life?
I’m not sure if the book is a good or even a helpful read. Years ago I was a big fan of The Artist’s Way by Julie Cameron which seems to embrace the same ideas. Work for the most part can become redundant and fear can paralyze you into making the same choices over and over again. A big take away from the last couple of years in the Real Estate space is that we need to be much more flexible in our approach. Not an easy task given the many years of tradition in the trade of what has “worked“. Many parts of our practice will never change, but what we all know is that many other parts are changing faster than most can keep up with.
On motivation and creativity
Sorry the video of Twyla has been removed from Youtube
