Tag: poetry

How acquiring entrepreneurial mindset can make you more creative at work

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Write, create, innovate!

dylan sherlock

Being entrepreneur is not easy. It might sound attractive, provocative – especially in the rising startup culture, but the risks, sacrifices, stress and uncertainties that entrepreneurs deal with every day leaves you with a kinda bitter-sweet taste in your mouth. Yet entrepreneurship and the experiences that entrepreneurs can offer is a learning path that we can encounter in many facets of our life. Even at your work place, where you have a boss, a coworkers, where you are dependable, have limited resources, deadlines and procedures you must follow – even then you can apply some of the  entrepreneurial principles, enrich your creativity  and become better employee: you can become an intrapreneur.

I’ve met many people who think they can work for themselves and finally be in control of their career. But sometimes they discover that entrepreneurship is the furthest thing from control in their life, because the realities of being an entrepreneur—the time investment, stress, and unexpected sacrifices—suddenly feels like an insurmountable task and not that much desired lifestyle. Then they become dissatisfied all over again, tired and experiencing crisis that is hard to overcome: instead of solving problems, new just start to generate.

Intrapreneurship borrows principles from entrepreneurship. In intrepreneurship you are developing whole new business and  products, while as an intrapreneur you are, within your organization, working on new programs, products, services mostly in a new, creative and innovative form. Working within limitations can actually boost your creativity while developing greater job satisfaction – having your own meaningful impact within your working environment.

An intrapreneurial approach to work can be for someone who wants to make a difference, use his talents, but within rather safe and predictable conditions without making too much risks and career changes.

So what can you actually do?

Be the one who delivers new ideas and solutions.

Get more educated and acquainted with the topic of the project you are working on; offer new ideas and guidance while discussing with your colleagues and co-workers; work on you presentation skills and search for new ways to employ your talents at work; become a source of knowledge and creativity; always have in mind that ‘bigger picture’ that goes beyond organizational policy and bureaucracy.

But be aware of one thing: find a right timing for showing your talents and learn to make suggestions diplomatically. You don’t want your co-workers to see you as a ‘threat’, someone who imposes himself all the time and who knows ‘everything’. If you do go overboard, you might end-up with too much work and with no support.

It does take courage and intuitive knowledge when is the right time to share your passion, talent and inventiveness, yet it’s a learning path, just like entrepreneurship is. It can help you overcome a stagnant feeling you might be holding towards your job and the growing you will experience is going to lead you to even better work and project opportunities.

I saw a Ruler take his stand
And trample on a mighty land;
The People crouched before his beck,
His iron heel was on their neck,
His name shone bright through blood and pain,
His sword flashed back their praise again.

I saw another Ruler rise–
His words were noble, good, and wise;
With the calm sceptre of his pen
He ruled the minds and thoughts of men;
Some scoffed, some praised–while many heard,
Only a few obeyed his word.

Another Ruler then I saw–
Love and sweet Pity were his law:
The greatest and the least had part
(Yet most the unhappy) in his heart–
The People, in a mighty band,
Rose up, and drove him from the land!

This is the poem by Adelaide Anne Procter: “The three rulers”. What I like about this poem is that in its own, intriguing way is telling the importance of innovative thinking, having our own voice that needs to be heard and understood. While reading the poem, we might think that only the sword matters, yet for collective success-it takes another two: noble, wise, love and sweet pity. Besides strength we need wisdom and empathy to make a our ‘business whole’: where we take into account our leaders, workers and customers.

While working on emphasizing and balancing these three qualities in our work we are bringing that needed change: a step towards betterment of our working lives that positively impacts others as well.

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Why people don’t like poetry?

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Business in Rhyme, Read, write, lead!, Write, create, innovate!

shelley

This essay is inspired by some of the recent comments in this post. And it made me think: why  people really don’t like poetry? What is it that keeps them away from maybe not writing, but from reading some really exquisite pieces by poets from all around the world?

The usual answer is something like “Poetry is boring”, “I don’t understand it”, “It’s a waste of time”. So I wanted to explore this topic a bit further.

If we look more deeply around us, we can notice that people have very little time to appreciate art in general. This fast paced, consumer oriented society has trained us to want everything now and here. An instant satisfaction, an instant thrill, an instant experience: not allowing our biological system to perceive with all its senses; truly absorb our emotions and simply feel.

Life usually demands of us high level of practicality, logical and factual thinking in order for us to be functional and productive on a day to day basis. It’s very noticeable in how we are doing business and science. But where are the boundaries? Have we lost our human touch? In our lives when everything is so exact and explicit we have erased some of the basic human traits: ability to feel and empathize. We cannot treat our most intimate relationships, families and ourselves like we are on a business meeting and signing a business contract.

And there is this soft spot where poetry likes to ‘poke’ you. It demands something different from you. It demands your whole being to respond: if you try logically to analyze a poem, it will take you nowhere; if you search for shortcuts, you will be lost; if you need answers, probably you will be disappointed.

A poem is a journey that allows you to escape from typical factual thinking and forces you to question everything: instead of searching for answers on the outside, you need to look deep inside of you.

There lies the true value of poetry – especially for business leaders, as it can be seen as an antidote to typical business interpretations:

  • poem is associative rather than factual thinking;
  • poem enforces abstract thinking in comparison to deductive thinking.

Like Clare Morgan implies in “What poetry brings to business”:

reading poetry generates conceptual spaces that maybe different from the spaces usually approached in business and life in general.

As poetry is letting yourself to get familiar with the unknown – it shouldn’t instill fear of ambiguity and uncertainty, but rather to be seen as a vehicle, attractive mystical longing that can transcend us across those conceptual spaces and offer different modes of interpretation: a sure way to enrich our creativity in all aspects of our lives.

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

Billy Collins

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Want to improve your writing? Practice receptivity and allowing

by Maja Todorovic, posted in Write, create, innovate: exercises, Writer's creative bites

holzer

Being receptive and allowing creative flow are somehow two basic modalities that we have to work with in order to engage in creative process. Today’s post is intentionally dedicated to this topic since if we manage to divert these two modalities  to “work for us” – it’s a sure way to combat any type of creative blockage. It might be more suitable for writers beginners, but I think that we all need from time to time to remind ourselves of some basic approaches.

What does it mean being receptive? You probably have noticed that in my writing I often use term ‘tune in with your inner self, inner being’. And that what it exactly means being receptive. You can consciously prepare yourself for receptivity by having faith and trust in that moment, that very second that your mind already knows everything that it needs to know to be fully creative, open and expressive. To sink in to your deep creative core you can practice meditative, rhythmic breathing that is connecting your awareness to what is flowing to you in each moment. Engage your senses, don’t shut down that feelings, let them freely find their space and meaning in your blank page – in that very moment. In order to keep that initial spark, in the quietness of your mind you can ask yourself: what is it that I need/want to say? What did I want to write about?

Ideas will come and start to accumulate and your task is only to write, without hesitation or any type of editing on the go. Something that was bugging you about your creative project, piece your were working on months ago might resolve and just what you needed can appear. Never waste your writing because that just might be the missing puzzle in your future work.

The second part of the process is something I call allowing. Allow yourself, give permission to yourself to write, create – no matter how many disapprovals, rejections, judgments you might received in the past. That negative voice in the back of our mind can block us from engaging in creative work and that’t the last thing you want to do.

You create and write for your own sake, for your own being to feel alive, attuned with creative force around us. You are in charge of your motivation, actions and willingness. And next time, when negative voice speak from nowhere all of a sudden, write everything the opposite.

That negative voice can say something like:

“Nobody is interested in anything I have to say.”

And you can write your affirmation:

‘I’m interested in what I have to say. I want to say. I need to say. I write because I want to say!’

‘There is no money in writing. It’s a wasted time.’

and your affirmation:

‘If I write more I will get better in this craft; being better means more opportunities to be published; being published opens possibilities to get a new source of income.’

or

‘I write because I love to write. I don’t need money from writing.’

This is one way to respond to that negative self-talk. Allow yourself just to be creative and you’ll be amazed how your writing improves.

Poetry to us is given
As stars beautify the heaven,
Or, as the sunbeams when they gleam,
Sparkling so bright upon the stream ;
And the poetry of motion
Is ship sailing o’er the ocean
Or, when the bird doth graceful fly,
Seeming to float upon the sky;
For poetry is the pure cream
And essence of the common theme.

Poetic thoughts the mind doth fill,
When on broad plain to view a hill ;
On barren heath how it doth cheer
To see in distance herd of deer.
And poetry breathes in each flower
Nourished by the gentle shower,
In song of birds upon the trees
And humming of busy bees.
‘Tis solace for the ills of life,
A soothing of the jars and strife;
For poets feel it a duty
To sing of both worth and beauty.

James McIntyre

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