The aim of this article is to help you (and me) understand how our time in the blogosphere helps us access our creativity and fine tune our creative gifts. It’s also aimed at inspiring you to keep going, to keep reaching for those things you set out to achieve, and to remind you why it’s worth it.
When we start out as bloggers, we may have many reasons for doing so, but did you ever stop to consider that among the primary reasons is finding your unique form of creativity and expressing your creative genius? For many of us, this probably doesn’t cross our minds, however, blogging is a brilliant vehicle for finding this stuff out.
So, here we are, setting out to make our mark in the world of blogging. How do we start? Where do we start? To the best of my knowledge, Yaro always says to write about whatever you really like, whatever floats your boat.
That sets the scene for our first act of creativity. When we find the thing that makes us tick, we find our authentic voice or our “element”. This is one of the greatest gifts we can ever give ourselves in life.
Our element, or our unique form of creativity, defines who we are. This gives us a level of self-awareness and self-assurance that most of the world is lacking because they’ve never gone looking for it. Being in touch with our truth or our authenticity is so powerful because in many ways, we’re unshakable in this place. It’s a place of inner knowing where we feel sure about who we are and what we’re doing. As bloggers, we have to find it, our success or failure depends on it. Who ever imagined blogging could give us this gift of finding our own creative genius? Brilliant!
As many of us may have experienced, there can be a few false starts along the way. Rock star blogger, Alborz Fallah, stumbled along scribbling about a few different things until he hit upon the thing that launched him with significant impact into the blogosphere. That’s all part of finding out who we are and fine tuning our creative gifts. If we knew exactly what we were doing to begin with, there would be no lessons to be learned, and no joy in finding our inner genius.
So, we’ve rattled around for a while and slowly but surely uncovered whatever it is that makes us tick, then we begin to share our wisdom. This in itself is a very powerful act of creativity and the benefits of doing so are almost immeasurable. To name a few of the big ones, in expressing our creativity, we find our tribe and we find our place within that tribe, and we may even find our gifts of leadership in creating our own tribe. When we blog, we share our wisdom/creativity. When we blog, we find our tribe and our place in our tribe, or we create our own.
When we express our creativity, we literally send out signals to the rest of the world about who we are, and other people who share similar interests and vibe about the same things will be drawn to you and your creative expression. Then the power of one becomes the power of many, and this opens the floodgates for even greater connection, communication and creativity within the group. Our creativity is the thing that builds our tribe or connects us with an already established tribe and helps us find our place in the world.
An extraordinary thing about blogging is that we generally become the Creator of a tribe. Yes, that’s right, Creator, with a capital “C”! Blogging is a highly creative act, and in doing so, we literally become creators, in myriad ways. It’s possible that whatever your unique creative expression is doesn’t have a defined group of people gathered to connect, communicate and co-create about this “thing” yet. By finding your authentic form of creativity and sharing this with others, you may become a leader for a group the world doesn’t even know it is missing. That’s one of the hallmarks of creativity, bringing to the world things it doesn’t even know it’s missing.
How about that? Now we’ve stumbled upon leadership amongst the many brilliant reasons to pursue blogging. Leaders are inspiring and highly creative individuals, that’s what makes them leaders, and that brings us to our next ramble.
When we find our unique form of creativity, and share our wisdom within an established tribe, or create our own tribe, we inspire others to do the same. By showing others what is possible through our own actions, we make it real for them. I generally like to think of inspiration as an inside job, that it comes from within. But there are always exceptions and it can also come from others. We’re inspired when we see others reach the goals they set for themselves. Inspiration comes from seeing another person expressing their creativity (in whatever form that may be) and reminds us that we have those same creative abilities. If they can do it, we can do it.
Two great examples of this in my life are Gideon Shalwick and Kerwin Rae. I’ve thanked both these men in my book for showing me by their own example, that if I say I’m going to do something, then act on it, my dreams are within reach. I know this is possible because I met Kerwin and Gideon when they were audience members in seminars and conferences that I was kicking around in a few years ago. Both of them have gone onto create their own vibrant and animated tribes, become leaders in their area of expertise, and create extraordinary businesses that give them the kind of life style they intended for themselves and their loved ones.
This seems like a stupid title, given that I’m in the process of writing words, but bear with me! Sir Ken Robinson is recognized as a world renowned expert on creativity, I’m a ridiculously massive fan of his work. He says, “creativity involves doing something, it’s a process, not an event.” Both of these men were similar to me when we first met, with big dreams and strong self-awareness. But they also had an unshakable focus on creating the lives they wanted. Both of them showed me by example that following your dreams and making them a reality is a completely reasonable thing to expect from life if you follow through with action. They did it, then why can’t I? Of course I can! If they did it, so can I.
There was no major difference between our creative abilities then, and there isn’t now. We’re all born highly creative, and we share an equal portion of creative power, but we need to be able to tap into our “element” and do the work, and it’s going to be a lot of “work”. But if we’re in our element/zone, it never feels like something we do begrudgingly, we love it and couldn’t think of anything we’d rather do. (Now I’m getting a bit off topic, but Dr.Mani wrote a great article for Entrepreneur’s Journey on this last week.)
The only difference in Kerwin and Gideon was they found their “element” sooner, shared their wisdom, and created their tribes whilst I was still kicking around figuring it out. It sure made me snap to attention when I saw how they had accomplished the things we had talked about a few years previously. I realized, I’d better stop tire kicking and do something if I want results! These are perfect examples of inspiration from others who have expressed their creativity and made stuff happen in their lives.
As most of us know, Gideon found his unique form of creative expression through blogging. (Rock on Rapid Video Blogging;) This has made it possible for him continue to express his creativity on even greater levels as the influence of his work extends further into the world.
Another bonus of expressing our creativity and becoming an inspirational leader is that we have incredible power to incite action and create movements! Who wouldn’t love to be known for inciting action and creating movements? Those things are cool!
Just look at the example cited above about Kerwin and Gideon. These guys didn’t just inspire me to get off my behind, they incited me to take action and begin creating my own movement. In their businesses they incite action in the lives of those who are drawn to engage in the activity of their tribe. Gideon and Kerwin create movements in the way their tribes are collectively engaged in activities that are designed by the tribe and the leader to take them to a place they collectively want to go. That is an intensely powerful form of creativity in action and it gets me freakin’ exciiiiiiiiited!!!!
In blogging, we can see clearly how this plays out for us. When we find our unique form of creativity and express it, we join or attract a tribe. We may have to spend some time finding whatever it is that makes us tick and also connects us with others.
The more authentically we express our creativity, the stronger our influence in our group and the more opportunities we get to express this creativity.
The more we finely tune our unique form of creativity and build upon our wealth of self-knowledge and experience, we naturally find ourselves in a position of leadership. Our Leadership role means we can inspire others to express their unique form of creativity, and incite them to take action, and if we do this on a large scale, then we have created a movement!
Yaro is doing this right now with the changes he’s making to Entrepreneur’s Journey. He’s created a strong group with shared goals (entrepreneurship, blogging and internet marketing) and we collectively take action to reach those goals. By allowing myself and other writers on his blog, he’s taken on another level of leadership where he creates a space for others to express their creativity. Big ups to Yaro for taking it to another level and stepping into Inspirational Leadership on a whole new platform! As creators, it can be very difficult to let go of your creation and allow it transform into a new expression of creativity.
If we can’t let this happen, there’s always going to be a limit to how much our creative expression can grow, because part of being a creative genius is inspiring others to express their creativity. If we refuse to share our creative gifts through Inspirational Leadership, our creative ability can be stunted and weaken it’s power to influence others. Sure, we might still experience some level of creative satisfaction, but we’ll get nowhere near expressing our true creative potential, which always wants to go further and to take it to the next level.
So, how cool is that? Finding your creative genius, expressing your creative genius, awakening your leadership potential, inspiring others, inciting action and creating movements. And all this can come from blogging! Was this something clearly laid out in your list of “why I’m going to be an amazing blogger?” Possibly not, but it’s worth adding now if it isn’t there already. And please note, the first thing on the list, the foundation for the whole equation is in your unique form of creative expression. None of the rest happens without knowing who you are and what your unique form of creative genius is.
Many of you will have completed my creative character survey to find out where your creative gifts lie. I’ve done some more work on it since the initial launch. Now when you find out an aspect of your creative character in the results, it also tells you how this plays out in your life and what kind of roles are suited to this creative element. This is a work in progress, as I’m constantly learning new things to add to the survey results! For those who might be curious, you can do so by clicking here: Your Creative Success Quiz.
Many thanks for reading this article, please leave any comments at the end as I’d love to hear any insights you may have about your own experiences.
Cheers, Neroli.
Neroli Makim is an internationally acclaimed artist, author and speaker on Creativity and its relationship to personal fulfillment and professional success. She educates people about Creativity, what it is, why it’s important and how to access it within themselves. For more information, visit http://www.yourcreativesuccess.com/.
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