I once believed that in order to be creative, I need to drive to the beach, rent a quiet space, and let the ideas start to flow.
Not so fast, Lisa!
As we learned at our 2nd annual CMOs Leading Innovation Conference (CLIC ’16), it’s possible to generate great ideas while sitting at our desk. Or at the kitchen table. And yes, even amidst the cacophony of a bustling Starbucks.
Mark Levy, president of Levy Innovation, a positioning and branding consultancy, was one of our special guest speakers. For me, it was a dream come true to invite Mark to CLIC ’16. Not only is he my creativity muse; he’s a good friend and collaborator. Mark is also a five-time time author, and an amateur magician!
Levy led our group of very engaged CMOs and CEOs through a creativity generation exercise using a process called “List Making.” You can download his powerful ebook here. For the past 16 years, Mark has been using this process with members of The White House, as well as senior executives in business and entertainment. Mark free writes daily to spark his imagination, organize his thoughts, and reduce stress.
Within just 7 minutes, Mark helped a room full of extremely busy leaders free their minds to go beyond self-imposed barriers.
Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Mark:
“This nonstop, free-writing technique—where you keep writing fast, allowing for mistakes and not letting your internal editor edit—releases you from the burden and stress of feeling that you have to get everything perfect. It generates new thoughts you probably would have consciously or subconsciously filtered out.”
Check out this 25 minute video I recorded during his talk. Fair warning: this is not a professionally produced video, and my hand was sometimes shaking. Mark’s compelling message prevails!
Other posts you will also enjoy:
CMO.com Summary from CLIC ’16 by Steve Cook: click here for the article.
Investing in Customer Experience in 2017? Mind the Message Maelstrom – click here (AMA webinar, sponsored by Infor)
3 Low-Tech Presentation Tips that Still Work (from Lisa’s FastCompany blog) – click here
Copyright 2016, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.