Creativity initiates a shift to a new approach. This is so much more than taking information, analyzing and building on it, and instead is based on creating transformational thinking. Creativity opens up possibilities and potential more fully. It can be seen as the difference between renovating a house and building one. It breaks down limitations and finds new approaches. Open minded creativity creates new perspectives, reduces limitations and provides a freedom for the future.

True creativity goes further than merely ideas. It is also putting ideas into practice. Picture creative ideas around you in never ending swirls, waiting to be grasped and secured into material being. Just as you can’t harness the wind without tools for physical capture and energy conversion, ideas will dissipate into nothingness unless a relationship is made to turn the ideas into reality. An environment or community that cultivates and cherishes the creative spirit is how true imaginative creativity and innovation come into being.

New ideas and novel solutions can be stimulated with expressive thinking, resourcefulness, and originality. Put yourself into places, situations, and with people that stimulate your imagination. Creative thinking can be used to meet many of your objectives. It might be doing or thinking about situations in a slightly different way, or from a new perspective. The ability to build something from nothing, is what distinguishes a creator from those who do not create. The brilliant feeling you get when a truly creative idea strikes, is often followed by an intense desire to make it real.

In his extensive research on the creative process and its related environment, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi summarized that ‘creativity leaves an outcome that adds to the richness and complexity of the future’. In his book, Creativity, he ventures well beyond the discussion of mere change, to recommend that readers work to find an emotional response that is stimulating and invigorating as they work to increase creativity. When you recognize your emotions, you provoke and stir creative thought by adding a dimension to your thinking. It is key to recognize feelings for interpretation in order to broaden, not narrow your thinking.

Find your passion, and build on it with ideas you can manifest into reality through the creative process. Csikszentmihalyi noted that individuals are motivated by the challenge of the unfinished, and not necessarily drawn to complete and final resolutions. The unfinished are the more interesting problems of intrigue that appeal to your senses. In addition, you would rather work on, and think about something that you resonate with, and awakening a passion inside you. Your zeal is more likely to draw solutions for you, than an area you are somewhat apathetic about.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the renowned literary figure, utilized creativity throughout his writing endeavors. As an acclaimed American essayist and poet, noted for thinking differently and having broad insights, he wrote Self-Reliance. He stated the importance of following one’s own instincts and ideas, breaking away from conformity and utilizing one’s creativity. Emerson focused on the individual, and famously said ‘The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn.’ Make a start, a fresh start and one idea will lead you onward.

Capturing conversations with remarkable people is what the Leadership International Talk Show is all about. It’s the first and third Wednesday of every month at noon. Mark you calendar for upcoming episodes, subscribe to the rss feed, or download your favorite episodes here. It’s a show, it’s a recording, and a podcast and it’s personal, created just for you.

Best selling authors will inspire you, coaches will lift you and great thinkers and teachers will take you to new levels.

Listen on iTunes: Listen now, or download from www.itunes.com

Listen on Talkshoe: Listen now, or download from www.talkshoe.com

Listen on Leadership International: Listen now, or download from www.LeadershipInternational.com

Cooperrider challenges businesses to be agents of world benefit and teaches that applied positive change has four major components, each with important questions -

1. Discovery and asking what gives life for the best of what is: Appreciating
2. Dreaming and asking what might be: Envisioning Results
3. Design and asking what should be: Co-constructing
4. Destiny and asking how to empower: Sustaining

Learn all about this innovative approach to change at http://worldbenefit.case.edu/

The study also asked participants to give qualitative responses to questions that showed that coaching helped increase self-confidence and personal insight, build management skills and helped participants deal with organizational change. These findings show that coaching can be effective in helping people deal with uncertainty and challenges.

The study was conducted by Anthony Grant and his group at the University of Sydney. According to Grant, executive coaching in organizations has grown significantly and is recognized as a helping relationship that uses cognitive and behavioral techniques to support a mutually defined set of goals, with the aim of improving performance and effectiveness. Grant is the author of numerous randomized trials that demonstrate coaching is effective and says coaching is effective because it is outcomes based and leads to not only an action plan, but taking action and success on goals.

Would you like a copy of this important new study? E-mail me for a copy at coachingstudy@leadershipinternational.com.

Wylands efforts have been recognized by the United Nations, the Sierra Club, the Underwater Academy of Arts and Sciences, and private and public institutions worldwide. 

Wyland, hailed a “marine Michelangelo” by USA Today, is listed in the Who’s Who in American Art, Guinness World Records, and many other national and international publications.  Wyland inspires people to live their passion, and create a business from doing so.

Inspirational, a great talent and utilizing his passion to lead change conserving our natural environment.

We each especially need to demonstrate resilience, optimism, optimal communications and collaborative initiative during today’s specific and unprecedented challenges. We still need to take action on what is most important and not languish in the waiting game. The wait and see approach that so many people have taken support neither global recovery nor expand personal opportunity. This is the time to build relationships, explore creative innovation, solidify strategic planning and move forward.

On a recent trip to Europe there was significant discussion on waiting it out, and watching to see what people in the US were dong, letting Americans take the lead on recovery and using US action as a yardstick to gage timing on activity. An important interpretation of this response is that taking action on initiatives is even more critical for global recovery than has been recognized, and indicates that action can not wait.

But having someone to champion that process for individuals is equally important, having someone to act as a trusted sounding board, and provide objective feedback is critical.  An executive coach supports the prioritization process and provides accountability for the implementation of plans in a systematic and manageable way, within the framework of what is possible.

Finding clarity and taking action is vital when a sense of overwhelm threatens to overshadow initiatives.

The Wall Street Journal article indicates ‘Coaches say many companies still use their services to retain top talent and support senior leaders while coping with smaller staffs and recession-starved budgets. Amber Romine, director in global human capital at consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC’s Washington, D.C., office, said she fields a steady stream of requests from clients looking for referrals to executive coaches.’

Many executives in a coaching partnership talk about how their companies and careers would be different if they had access to coaching decades ago. From personal skills and interpersonal relationship effectiveness, strategic planning and execution, and through to change management, leadership development through coaching is widely recognized as an indispensible tool for today’s time and beyond, as we shift into economic recovery.

Barbara De Angelis,

Barbara is inspirational  in the truest sense of the word, reminding each of us to remember why we are here.

Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D. is believed by many to be one of the most influential teachers of our time in the field of personal and spiritual transformation. For the past thirty years, she has reached tens of millions of people throughout the world with her positive messages about love, happiness and the search for meaning in our lives.

As a best-selling author, popular television personality and sought after motivational speaker, Barbara is legendary in the field of personal development as one of the first people to popularize the idea of self-help in the 1980’s, and as one of the first nationally recognized female motivational teachers on television.

Dr. De Angelis is also the author of fourteen best-selling books which have sold over ten million copies and been published throughout the world. Her first book, How To Make Love All the Time, was a national best seller and was followed by the New York Times Bestsellers: Secrets About Men Every Woman Should Know, Are You the One For Me? and Real Moments. Barbara also co-authored the New York Times bestseller Chicken Soup For The Couples Soul. Her most recent book, How Did I Get Here? Finding Your Way to Renewed Hope and Happiness When Life and Love Take Unexpected Turns, has received numerous awards and high acclaim.

In 1994, Barbara wrote and produced the TV infomercial, “Making Love Work,” which won numerous awards, and was the most successful relationship program of its kind. Barbara appeared weekly for two years on CNN, has hosted her own daily television show for CBS TV, and her own popular radio talk show in Los Angeles. She has been a frequent guest on shows including Oprah, The Today Show and Good Morning America.

Dr. De Angelis is currently president of Shakti Communications Incorporated, dedicated to bringing enlightened messages to the world through all electronic and print mediums.

Meeting Barbara is magical and unforgettable. She will have a deep personal message for you that will challenge you to a higher self. Her soul penetrating perceptions are quite remarkable and she is undeniably one of one of the great mystics of today’s world.

My conversation with Barbara was one of the most meaningful I have ever had…more to come on what she said to me.

Several years ago I co-founded the South Fayette Conservation Group and together we obtained a grant to build a wetland, educational trail and outdoor classroom that will forever be a part of our school and community.

Here is the amphitheatre, a multipurpose greenspace nestled as a natural classroom in the woods.

Register  for the Conference here! Join me as I speak about the essentials for transformational leadership and my book, ‘How to Think Like a Leader’.

 Another chance meeting. I love chance meetings.

Conflict prevention has been very much on my mind for the past year or so, as it has been for many of us around the globe concerned about violence near and far.

I have appreciated the writing of Herbert Kelman and studied some of his work for a conflict resolution course I recently undertook.

Then low and behold, he walked into a small gathering of psycholgists for social responsibility I was attending.

There he was stanidng next to me, a chief global mediator who stands for peace. Read his answers to ten questions on peace.

Here is an excerpt:

‘I would describe myself as a strategic optimist, and I am distinguishing it from being a naïve optimist, who would say that everything and the world is good. I see optimism rather as a strategy; and if you maintain this sense of possibility, then you keep looking for where the points of entry are, where there are things you can do in order to move forward. And while doing it, you create positive self-fulfilling prophecies.’

Kelman on Peace Mediation