Archive | October, 2004

Quick Creativity Exercise by Gerry Katzman

Here’s the good news: your creative muscles will respond immediately to even the lightest amount of training.

Here is an exercise that takes a second and will definitely increase your creativity by leaps and bounds.

Taking a composition notebook (the kind you had in school), write your phone number and the word “confidential” on the front. Get a pencil and place them next to your bed.

As you wake up, take whatever is in your mind — a thought, a feeling, a picture — and write it down. It can be one word, it can be one letter, it does not have to make sense or even be in a recognizable language. Whatever you’ve got in your mind, write it, draw it, scribble, or scrawl it. You are not making sense, you are simply catching an image and transferring it to paper. If you have nothing in your mind, write a line down the page and close the book.

You are done.

This exercise will reward your creativity more magnificently than you could ever think possible. With only one second every morning, you are telling your subconscious that what it has to say matters.

And with that, your unconscious mind will begin to flow you a river of new thoughts and ideas that will surprise even the most creative person among us.

Your conscious mind will be delighted to start the day with an easy task to accomplish and you may notice a greater sense of order throughout the day. But whatever the reason, this exercise works.

Soon, you will find your creative powers growing exponentially. Try it for one week and let me (Gerry Katzman) know your results. Write to GKat250000@aol.com. Those who respond will be entered to win an opportunity to attend the next “Breakthrough Creativity Conference” for free!

This was found in Gerry Katzman’s recent article,

“Creativity — Key to Success,” published in Integrity Business & Consumer Journal, Vol. 1, #2),

Crisell Integrity Journal, 18421 Bessemer St., Tarzana, CA 91335.

(949) 742-0979.

Gerry Katzman’s clients have included Microsoft, ADM, American Excpress, The Anthony Robbins Mastery Tribe, and more.

– How To Be Creative –

Check out the articles on the creative process at gapingvoid.com.

[Thanks to Douglas E. Welch for turning me on to this link.]

Enjoy!

Martha Graham wrote in a letter to Agnes De Mille …

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all Time, this expression is unique.

And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it.

It is not your business to determine: how good it is; nor how valuable it is; nor how it compares with other expressions.

It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.

You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open … no artist is pleased…there is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction; a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

[Thanks to our good friend, Walter Rapaport, for bringing my attention to this.]

And here’s a book review I found at highbeam.com —

“It’s not every book that takes more than 20 years to write and to publish. But then, not every book allies two lifelong friends as author and subject–and, in the case of Agnes de Mille and Martha Graham, two leaders of 20th-century dance. Martha: The Life and Work of Martha Graham (Nonfiction Forecasts, Aug. 9), published by Random House, is just such a book. Written by de Mille, the choreographer of Rodeo, Oklahoma!, and many other acclaimed ballets and works of musical theater, this intimately informative biography of her peer is also, as it happens, a subtle self-portrait…”