Skip to main content

The creative personality

Via a Twitter update by Marci Segal, I came across an interesting article by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi about the creative personality. Reading the article, I learned, for example, the following 10 things:

Learning point # 1
The energy of creative people is internally generated, due not least to their focused minds.

Learning point # 2
People who bring about an acceptable novelty in a domain seem able to use well two opposite ways of thinking: the convergent and the divergent. Divergent thinking is often perceived as deviant by the majority, and so the creative person may feel isolated and misunderstood.

Learning point # 3
Creative people combine playfulness and discipline.

Learning point # 4
Creative people alternate between imagination and fantasy, and a rooted sense of reality.

Learning point # 5
Creative people tend to be both extroverted and introverted.

Learning point # 6
Creative people are humble and proud at the same time. They're usually so focused on future projects and current challenges that past accomplishments, no matter how outstanding, are no longer very interesting to them.

Learning point # 7
Creative people, to an extent, escape rigid gender role stereotyping.

Learning point # 8
Creative people are both rebellious and conservative.

Learning point # 9
Most creative people are very passionate about their work, yet they can be extremely objective about it as well.

Learning point # 10
Creative people's openness and sensitivity often exposes them to suffering and pain, yet also to a great deal of enjoyment.

How creative are you?

Comments

Unknown said…
I learned through this blog posting that Making unusual connections is the basis of creativity.

http://www.swiss-miss.com/2010/04/creativity.html
Unknown said…
In this presentation, Mr. Steve Shapiro mentions that making connections between different areas of expertise.

http://vimeo.com/8335979

Popular posts from this blog

Impressions from Ree Park in Denmark

I visited Ree Park in Denmark earlier this month. I had a great time there. Ree Park is an interesting Experience Economy contribution. Here are some impressions from the day, I spent there: The lemurs in the park look really cute and come really close to guests. The Cheetahs are really agile and can run more than 100 km per hour. This is what the cheetahs had for lunch. Listening to the guide talk to the large number of people watching the feeding of the cheetahs, I learned that it's horse meat. The white powder on the meat is, as I understood it, vitamins. Here's a coke machine in the park that is adapted to the surroundings. Good innovation. I think it’s a good idea to split up the park in different continents. That way, it’s easy for guests to learn about on which continents different animals live. If you’re interested in watching videos from Ree Park, click here .

Trust

One of the most innovative innovation communities I have come across is Innov8rs . I experience that both in terms of how technology is used and how moderation is done, Innov8rs is moving well forward. This week, Innov8rs Connect, a free online event, takes place. The first webinar, I tuned in for, focused on trust. And it certainly did not disappoint. Both the expert, Philipp Kristian Diekhoener, and the moderator, Hans Balmaekers, conducted a wonderful jam session, during which questions, ideas and knowledge ping-ponged back and forth so well that it sounded like great music in my ears. After the webinar, I was still so excited about what happened that I decided to update research I did about  Trust  some time ago.