“Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way.” — Edward De Bono
I love Edward De Bono’s explanation of how humor sparks creativity. To illustrate this, I am going to tell you a joke:
Did you hear about the man who wanted to start a bakery? … He could not raise enough dough.
Now visualize a horizontal line that represents our normal thinking pattern. When you hear the joke’s question, your mind begins to move in a linear and logical way along the line as it thinks about a bakery and starting a business. When you hear the punch line, your mind makes the connection of dollars being called “dough.” But then it jumps off of its horizontal track to connect to a bakery’s use of bread dough. Our brains make the “ah-ha” connection between the two meanings of dough and we laugh. We now have two completely different ways of reading the story. Creativity is the same. We force the mind outside of its normal thinking patterns, then the mind will find a way to link back, creating a new mental connection – AN IDEA.
“The creative person wants to be a know-it-all. He wants to know about all kinds of things: ancient history, nineteenth- century mathematics, current manufacturing techniques, flower arranging, and hog futures. Because he never knows when these ideas might come together to form a new idea. It may happen six minutes later or six months, or six years down the road. But he has faith that it will happen.” — Carl Ally
Never be stuck without a solution again. Discover how creative thinking exercises can quickly turn you into your own inspired think tank.
