Using Creativity Innovation as a Game Change to Solve Tough Problems

There are many people in my circle of friends around the world who have a deep commitment to contribution to the health of communities, systems, nations, and the Universe. Many of us are deeply concerned about the state of the world. We are seeking a game change. Some of us feel the pain of human and ecological suffering so deeply we are confused as to what we can do.

What can we do? What can one person do? What can a group of people do? And how do we do this and remain viable in our own lives? How do we play at finding solutions to some of the largest problems and still manage to feed our children, sustain ourselves, and not live from hand-out to hand-out?

These are the questions that are ever more real for many more people.

It starts with an impulse, or calling. There is some issue or problem that we feel uniquely compelled to initiate action around. It is our heart-ache, our passion. For me this impulse is to bring light to the current global economic system, to understand it in an embodied way in order to sit in the question as to what we can do to transform it with wisdom.

Here is little me, a nobody living nowhere in particular, and my call is to tackle this issue. What do I do? The first imperative is to stay with the integrity of the impulse. It is a seed that may become an oak or a pineapple. What it becomes depends on how I nourish and nurture the seed as well as what is genetically encoded to be born by this seed. We need to nurture the seed, not get caught in the enormity of the oak. As a veteran marathon runner I know the discipline of staying with the next step and not getting sidelined that I have another 41 kilometers or 26 miles to go. Yes, I have to plan for the larger context of the marathon, but when I am in the race, I need to stay completely focused on the next step while holding the tension of how much further I have to go. If I go out too hard I will not make it, if I go out too slowly I will not get my desired time. This beautiful tension between the present action and the desired future needs wisdom and grace.

What does this seed require to start the process of budding. This is the next step? What is the creativity innovation that is called for?I must sit in the questions and cultivate an abundance mindset to what is already present. (See my article on staying in the question.) Staying in the abundance mindset is critical. It is very easy to fall back into the usual habit of seeing the lack? Lack of this or that. Instead, keep looking for the abundance.

Who do I know?

Who do I know that may know someone I need to know?

What needs to happen to animate this seed/impulse?

What don’t I know?

What can’t I see that may be vital to success?

Where are the opportunities already in existence?

Where is the abundance?

I also need to check my ego. What do I want to happen? What do I want this to look like? I may not want a pineapple. I may want the oak. But if the seed is a pineapple seed, no matter how much energy and effort I apply, I am not going to get an oak. I may want my impulse to make me rich and famous. Or I want it to manifest in exactly a particular form. Our role in giving birth to true creativity innovation and emergence is to be stewards and shepherds. What needs to emerge will do so given the right environment, consideration and care. And usually the final product will look nothing like what we envisioned at the original impulse. If I become too attached to the form then that is about me and my needs and not about what needs to emerge. Put simply, I, when acting out of ego, become the greatest impediment to the birth of the seed. I impede the flow of creativity innovation.

Within the very act of holding the seed at the centre of my inquiry, having its healthy and viable emergence be the most important focus of my attention, will allow what needs to show up to show up. The next step of the creativity innovation will be provisioned from my willingness to be open to what is available to me now.

And then I repeat the process of creativity innovation for as long as the impulse if there. Often times others will come into the fray and be ignited by the emergent impulse. Sometimes those people will take over my role as the fire-starter. I must constantly monitor myself, my ego demands, and what needs to emerge that is above and beyond me. I do advise having an independent third party person to support my staying in truth to the integrity of what needs to be born. (An integral coach, for example.)

In future articles on creativity innovation I will cover specific issues like “what if the impulse needs money to animate it?”

I will also keep you posted on my journey of bringing awareness to the current global economic system utilising this method of creativity innovation so you can track the success of my own project in real time.

Creating a game change situation using the law of abundance

To return from Creativity Innovation to the Positive Deviant Home Page

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