Tag: creativity
Daily verse with purpose
Let your senses guide your creative spirit
That is beautiful which is produced by the inner need, which springs from the soul.
~ Wassily Kandinsky
The idea for this creativity prompt was inspired by Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944) a Russian painter. He is one of the founders of Expressionism movement and he became famous for his abstract art. Most of his paintings were influenced by the music he was listening to. Kandinsky was on quest to break the barriers between different arts and actually tried to connect them in his work. “Concerning the spiritual art” is the most influential piece that left its mark on the abstract art of the 20th century.
So, as Kandinsky was painting his music, you can go step further and write a poem influenced by the 
music you hear. The idea is not to describe the music, but rather let yourself feel the music -take you to different place, different time. In this post, I in length elaborate the importance of finding time and place for your creative activities. Secure that peaceful moment when you are not disturbed and with calm and ease pursue your activity. Sit in a comfortable position, close your eyes and imagine what you hear, absorbs you like sponge and you are like water: liquid, flexible, traveling through different sounds, shapes, colors and words. Let music guide you and write without censoring, without limitation. Along the way you can sketch, you can develop your visual story…what ever feels right at that moment. There is no goal to achieve, except to escape the rational and let your inner creativity shine.
For this exercise I propose three classical pieces:
- Four seasons by A. Vivaldi
- Adagio by T. Albinoni
- Bolero by M. Ravel
Each piece will evoke different emotion. Don’t fight it, just let it be and surrender to it. Your creative spirit will find its way for most appropriate expression. I chose classical music with purpose, because it is believed that classical music makes you more honest with yourself, improves communication, memory and in general improves our stress levels, which is crucial for creative thinking.
You can choose other musical pieces according to your taste, as well. And please, share your experience in the comments below.
A Violin at Dusk by Lizette Woodworth Reese
Stumble to silence, all you uneasy things,
That pack the day with bluster and with fret.
For here is music at each window set;
Here is a cup which drips with all the springs
That ever bud a cowslip flower; a roof
To shelter till the argent weathers break;
A candle with enough of light to make
My courage bright against each dark reproof.
A hand’s width of clear gold, unraveled out
The rosy sky, the little moon appears;
As they were splashed upon the paling red,
Vast, blurred, the village poplars lift about.
I think of young, lost things: of lilacs; tears;
I think of an old neighbor, long since dead.
Daily verse with purpose
Daily verse with purpose
Raise your emotional inteligence for a creative entrepreneurial leadership – part II
In the first part of this blog post I shared a poem of a young entrepreneur where he reveals his emotions, struggles and needs when it comes to entrepreneurship and for every wannabe entrepreneur out there, was a quiet a taste for “try walking in my shoes”.
But what about the feelings and emotions when our environment expects us to be or do something that is not our ambition, our passion? How to deal with difficult situations that arise when we cannot follow someone else’s dreams; when we need to tell our story, follow our own path? 
The poem “To my Father’s business” by Kenneth Koch
Leo bends over his desk
Gazing at a memorandum
While Stuart stands beside him
With a smile, saying,
“Leo, the order for those desks
Came in today
From Youngstown Needle and Thread!”
C. Loth Inc., there you are
Like Balboa the conqueror
Of those who want to buy office furniture
Or bar fixtures
In nineteen forty in Cincinnati, Ohio!
Secretaries pound out
Invoices on antique typewriters—
Dactyllographs
And fingernail biters.
I am sitting on a desk
Looking at my daddy
Who is proud of but feels unsure about
Some aspects of his little laddie.
I will go on to explore
Deep and/or nonsensical themes
While my father’s on the dark hardwood floor
Hit by a couple of Ohio sunbeams.
Kenny, he says, some day you’ll work in the store.
But I felt “never more” or “never ever”
Harvard was far away
World War Two was distant
Psychoanalysis was extremely expensive
All of these saved me from you.
C. Loth you made my father happy
I saw his face shining
He laughed a lot, working in you
He said to Miss Ritter
His secretary
“Ritt, this is my boy, Kenny!”
“Hello there Kenny,” she said
My heart in an uproar
I loved you but couldn’t think
Of staying with you
I can see the virtues now
That could come from being in you
A sense of balance
Compromise and acceptance—
Not isolated moments of brilliance
Like a girl without a shoe,
But someone that you
Care for every day—
Need for customers and the economy
Don’t go away.
There were little pamphlets
Distributed in you
About success in business
Each about eight to twelve pages long
One whole series of them
All ended with the words
“P.S. He got the job”
One a story about a boy who said,
“I swept up the street, Sir,
Before you got up.” Or
“There were five hundred extra catalogues
So I took them to people in the city who have a dog”—
P.S. He got the job.
I didn’t get the job
I didn’t think that I could do the job
I thought I might go crazy in the job
Staying in you
You whom I could love
But not be part of
The secretaries clicked
Their Smith Coronas closed at five p.m.
And took the streetcars to Kentucky then
And I left too.
Being honest to yourself, yet still honoring someone else’s dream (like your father’s business) is a representation of emotional intelligence and this type of poetry is a true source of knowledge; to help us grow, get mature, responsible and more decisive about our own lives.
Raise your emotional intelligence for creative entrepreneurial leadership- part I
It is very important to understand that emotional intelligence is not the opposite of intelligence, it is not the triumph of heart over head — it is the unique intersection of both.”
~ David Caruso
While doing research for my next blog post I came across very interesting article “Poetry as a way of knowing” which was actually an introduction to a podcasts at Philosopher’s corner.
In this article Laura Maguire, proposes 3 types of knowledge: having practical knowledge which is “roughly defined as knowledge that does and shall (from a normative, prudential or moral, point of view) motivate to act in a certain way” (as described in paper What is Practical Knowledge?), and mostly is reflected in skills we have to do certain things; then, there is propositional knowledge which is a form of descriptive knowledge and mostly reflected in scientific approach where we collect facts to describe and explain the world around us (where in my previous post I went in depth what are the similarities and differences between science and poetry).
But before going to elaborate the third type of knowledge, not everything is black and white when it comes to first two types. As author Laura Maguire argues:
When you study poetry. presumably you develop many skills, like learning how to interpret a poem, which involves other skills, like how to identify and understand metaphor, how to measure meter, and so on.And maybe if you read a lot of poetry you also develop another skill, namely how to write poetry. So, in that sense, it’s easy to see how poetry could be a way of knowing.
And also through series of my posts I tried to elaborate the benefits of writing and reading poetry for the sake of developing other practical skills – crucial for our self-development. But today I would like to talk more about phenomenal type of knowledge as author Laura Maguire described it and how is that beneficial for our business undertakings.
Phenomenal knowledge is mostly related to knowledge of what is like to have a particular kind of experience. Can we learn form that? In other words, when it comes to business, can we get an insight what it’s like to be an entrepreneur, being self-reliant and building good communication with customers, for example? Can it really enhance our emotional intelligence, in general?
A poem “Love My Startup More Than You” by Rizwan Virk I found on the zenentreprenur blog and goes like this:
Cindy Lu, Cindy Lu
You know that my heart is true
But my Idea is very new
And we’ll make a million dollars
If only I can prove
That the market is true!
Cindy Lu Cindy Lu
Soon I’ll be home
And put my arms around you
….
But first
I’m being shown
Design specs I must review!
The beta downloads are a jumping
But so are the bugs that need a thumping!
Please let me know
When the baby is asleep
Then I can show
You how we’ll avoid feature creep!
Towards you my sweetheart I’ll always feel
A never ending attraction
But right now what I really need to show
Is more customer traction!
Cindy Lu, Cindy Lu
Don’t look at me that way,
You’ll worry yourself blue!
Once we raise our series A
Our mortgage will be easy to pay!
And if the company gets in a bind,
My investors will help me find
Some folks that are keen
To assemble a management team
And we’ll be on our way
To making lots of green!
So please don’t think that I’m mean
When I say:
Cindy Lu, Cindy Lu
You know my heart is true,
But just right now,
I love my startup
More than you!
This poem is a sort of an ode to all young and ambitional entrepreneurs in the Sillicon Valey. Virk firmly believes that poetry is a great medium for expression of entrepreneurial ideas, ups and downs that entrepreneurship brings and how it changes life. A poem is instinct with love, confusion, desire for stability and how someone is ready to “put on hold” all of his relationships- because business is the only thing that matter.
I would say that poetry is a source of knowledge and as we can learn a lot about love, death and sorrow in poetry as emotions we can learn a lot about entrepreneurial emotions too: get that practical insight of what it means to be an entrepreneur, along with all victories and sacrifices it requires.
It can help us with our doubts, fears, uncertain decision making, but most importantly it can open new windows of creative sources that are aligned with our values – making us emotionally mature and persistent in our endeavors.
Daily verse with purpose
Lean leader is a poetry reader
Whenever you read a good book, somewhere in the world a door opens to allow in more light.
~ Vera Nazarian
It’s interesting to note that many of the great contemporary 20th century poets were business professionals,. For example T.S. Eliot worked for Lloyds of London, and Wallace Stevens was a vice president at an insurance company.
Also, James Dickey that worked in advertising, left his mark in the corporate world. So, it’s evident that business somehow has shaped and influenced last century poetry. What we often forget is how reading the verse of aforementioned professionals can enhance our own business qualities and can contribute to our well-being and self-development.
In one article of New York Times, C.E.O. Libraries Reveal Keys to Success
Sidney Harman, founder of Harman Industries says:
I used to tell my senior staff to get me poets as managers. Poets are our original systems thinkers. They look at our most complex environments and they reduce the complexity to something they begin to understand.
Unfortunately, business people are reading nowadays far more less. Life is running at such pace that reading material unrelated to business is almost impossible. The digital world is shortening our attention span and our patience to read and contemplate some abstract thought is almost nonexistent. But wide scope of reading is often a remarkable characteristic of many leaders and can initiate innovation, empathy, deeper understanding.
And how that relates to lean leadership?
An “old school” of leadership promotes the form of leadership where the notion is that leader holds the key of every knowledge and “his way of doing things” is the only way.
On the other hand, “empowering leadership” follows the crowd, doesn’t pay much attention to the rules and implies “let’s do it your way”. It’s true it can generate many innovative ideas, yet sometimes it leads to chaos and lack of responsibility.
And “lean leadership” allows for spontaneous solution to appear while focus is not that much on the leader as much on “let’s figure this out – together”.
For a successful lean leader is important to develop social skills, foster encouragement and compassion. Lean leader is able to seize the meaning and purpose in dynamic and at surface unrelated events.
Research findings, published in the paper Does reading make you smarter? Literacy and the development of verbal intelligence, suggest that reading makes you smarter through
a larger vocabulary and more world knowledge in addition to the abstract reasoning skills.
It can enhance leader’s efficacy through improved vocabulary intelligence that comes from reading more abstract topics and genres.
So, every day try to incorporate reading some poetry in your hectic schedule, join a reading club or attend some poetry evenings – and watch your business skills improve for the better.
Tenacious Persistence by Orison Swett Marden
The force that is going to carry you to your goal,
Is coiled up inside of you , in your energy, your pluck, your grit,
Your originality, your character, and your possession of a strong,
Persistent, tenacious purpose.
Whatever you do in life, keep in an ambition –
Arousing atmosphere.
Keep close to those who are dead in earnest,
Who are anxious to do something in the world.
You will catch the spirit of your environment.
Are you living your fullest potential?
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
~Oriah
I must admit, this question bothers me from time to time. Am I giving my best? Would I like to spend my time differently? Is this all there is? Am I truly pursuing my purpose and passion?
The list can go own and unfortunately we all have that little worm of doubt that likes to dig around our consciousness and play with our thoughts. One thing I know for sure: that kind of thinking will not take us anywhere. Yesterday doesn’t exist and tomorrow is too much elusive. So instead, I try to ask my self: “Am I giving my best in this situation, in this particular moment? Am I present enough in what’s going on around me? What would make me feel better – right now?” And when you rearrange things like that – are you your best version from moment to moment, with little effort put on improving yourself – I think we are living our purpose and giving our best. Just as long we are honest about who we are.
Often, we tend to be too judgmental towards others and ourselves as well. Instead, try to be more empathetic towards your mistakes, wrong decisions, poorly made choices…with everything that you think is wrong with your life. It’s so easy to be a critique, but about being your greatest supporter and fan?
The cumulative effect of feeling good as frequent and long as we can is what actually counts; how much we are satisfied with ourselves. The poem bellow so perfectly captures the importance of those valuable moments and I’m certain it will give you courage to improve “your bits and pieces”, from moment to moment, to your full life.
Compensation by Edgar Albert Guest
I’d like to think when life is done
That I had filled a needed post.
That here and there I’d paid my fare
With more than idle talk and boast;
That I had taken gifts divine.
The breath of life and manhood fine,
And tried to use them now and then
In service for my fellow men.
I’d hate to think when life is through
That I had lived my round of years
A useless kind, that leaves behind
No record in this vale of tears;
That I had wasted all my days
By treading only selfish ways,
And that this world would be the same
If it had never known my name.
I’d like to think that here and there,
When I am gone, there shall remain
A happier spot that might have not
Existed had I toiled for gain;
That someone’s cheery voice and smile
Shall prove that I had been worth while;
That I had paid with something fine
My debt to God for life divine.
Business in Rhyme 