I must sheepishly add here that when I interviewed Shama Kabani, the award-winning online marketing expert who was named one of the Top 25 Entrepreneurs Under Age 25 by BusinessWeek in 2009 and is the President of the Marketing Zen Group, she told me that she does not do anything with paper. Shama said, “No, I can't remember the last time I wrote something. The only time I hold a pen is when I sign checks. If someone wants to send me something, I ask them to please send it digitally because I don't want any paper. I don't have an office and I don't have anywhere to keep it. Even when I get business cards, I take pictures of them, and then throw away the cards.” I know for me, and for many of my older clients and the older women that I interviewed for this book, we grew up with paper and real books, and still work that way. Even when I write, I have to print each chapter out on paper; sometimes I even use different colors, because the words look different on the printed page than they do on the laptop screen. I take my hat off to Shama and her generation for being able to really work paperlessly.
MANAGING IDEAPHORIA
Ideaphoria is also called divergent thinking. Many jobs, careers, and educational programs teach the opposite model, convergent thinking, which is critical thinking. This is the kind of critical and logical thinking used to evaluate ideas and choices. The SATs are convergent, which is why many brilliant idea people don't do well on them. In fact, there is one study that indicates that teachers do not enjoy working with divergent thinkers. That is interesting, because Johnson O'Connor themselves write that “the best trait of a teacher is ideaphoria.” Ideaphoria is an important aspect of creativity, but originality, flexibility, and elaboration are important too. The ideaphoria part is often about word association, fantasy, storytelling, and analogies, linking unrelated things.
The challenge for people with ideaphoria is choosing what to focus on and getting it done without changing your mind or moving on to a new project. Focus and execution are key skills that those of us with ideaphoria need to learn. People with ideaphoria can often have multiple careers—copywriters, novelists, teachers, inventors, designers, entrepreneurs, artists, sales people, marketers—any career where they can express their rapid, ceaseless flow of ideas. Therefore, they may have erratic career paths, feel unfocused, have closets full of unfinished projects, and may not stay with things long enough to be successful with them. Successful people open the windows of opportunity to generate ideas and then close the windows securely to evaluate those ideas. People with ideaphoria see connections among things that other people don't see. They are big picture people, change agents, generalists, and can have trouble specializing. This can hurt them financially, as they need to settle down and work on one thing at a time and not get distracted. Barbara Sher refers to people with ideaphoria as “scanners.” When I see clients with ideaphoria, I try to brainstorm with them about ways to have what I call “umbrella careers” that combine a variety of things that they love to do. But they have to focus on a limited number of projects at a time. Being an entrepreneur can be a good route, as you have flexibility and can focus on the big picture, but you need to have people to help you execute your vision.
Highly creative people quite often have ideaphoria combined with strong intuitive skills, high emotional intelligence, and a keen awareness of their senses. They can absorb things like a sponge, which can make them tired, anxious, and overwhelmed. Issues of self-esteem, lack of self-acceptance, and weak problem-solving skills can undermine the careers of people with ideaphoria, leaving them under-employed, unhappy, and underpaid. Sometimes highly creative people are misdiagnosed with anxiety and depression when they simply need outlets for their creative ideas. They need people and projects that can benefit from their highly productive capacity for new ideas—it is creative imagination.
There are six strategies that I teach people who have ideaphoria to help them avoid its pitfalls:
1 Celebrate your talents and heal from your misunderstandings. One potential pitfall is negative self-talk, with you wishing that you were more focused. Acknowledge that you need meaningful projects in which to express your creativity and that you may have multiple careers and identities, and that is okay. There is nothing wrong with you, but you do need to learn how to control it. You are also vulnerable to burnout and sensory overload.
2 Be sure to come up with an effective way to record your ideas daily; then look for patterns or themes. Your ideas are valuable. Then focus on which one to three ideas excite you the most right now.
3 Learn to say NO, not now. You need strong filters so that you don't get overloaded with too much input. You need to put up formidable boundaries. Unsubscribe from magazines, blogs, newsletters, etc. and make a decision about what new data you are willing to receive right now and delete the rest—for now. Look at the short-term view of what you are working on at the moment and beware of the lure of bright, shiny, new objects. Note them down and file them away until later.
4 Clear the clutter in your life. Keep one or two books by your bed, not fifteen. Find someone who can help you to get organized and clear away everything that you are not going to complete. A personal organizer who is very structured can be a life changer.
5 You must develop a decision-making process for yourself, which is why a coach or a mentor is essential. Think in three-month quarters, and plot out what you will do during that time to support your big vision and your life purpose. Then cut down your list so that it is realistic. Can't decide what book to write? Start with the one that you most want to write or one that is almost complete that you still feel passionate about—but choose one. Several support systems may be needed to keep you on track.
6 Design a daily centering process to review your goals and affirmations each morning, so that you remember what they are. Because you are so attracted to the new and the novel, you may forget your current plan and not reap the benefits of your idea generation and execution.
Convergent thinkers are creative too, but they may need a push to learn to tap into their creative ideas. Start by keeping an Excitement List. For two weeks, write down anything that excites you—a color, a word, a concept, a person— and then have someone help you look at the patterns. Then try the Creativity Catalysts at the end of the chapter for a jump-start. You can train yourself to notice your creative ideas by journaling about them with your Excitement List, and by having novel and interesting adventures every week to stimulate new ways of thinking.
Take a different route home from work, wear a color that you never wore before (that's in your color chart, of course), talk to an intriguing person in a favorite store, travel to someplace you have longed to see. Shake up your life and see what emerges. It's all about making new connections between concepts.
INFUSING YOUR MUSE
It is vital that you make a connection with your inner muse so that she or he can become your personal Idea Manager. You need tools and assistance that will help you to capture your ideas so that you don't lose your inspiration. But you need your muse to walk you through a system that leads to evaluating and deciding about these choices. Ultimately, you must choose only one to three creative projects at a time or your energy will be much too scattered.
A lot of my coaching work with clients involves taking them through a research and decision-making process about each of their precious creative ideas and helping them to choose the wisest and most compelling one to focus on. Our first step, though, is getting acquainted with our inner muse. My muse, Tiffany, is a lovely, blonde, classy lady who lives in a luxurious cave high above the Coral Beach Club in Bermuda with a view of my beloved beach with its clear blue water, gorgeous grape leaves, and caves to explore. I discovered her many years ago in a meditation at EST and she has been my inner guide ever since. She meets with me whenever I like.
Here are some tips to help you find and build a solid relationship with your muse.
My friend Deborah Knox sent me an amazing book called Sleeping with