A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others do. — Leroy Eims
Leadership starts with a vision. Whether you're leading a country, a company, or simply yourself, you must have a vision. A strong one. Because the stronger the vision, the more likely success will be.
That vision, strong or not, always begins in your imagination, or the mind's eye. That's where you start to see things as you'd like them to be in the future. Or the way you wish things could be right now.
Getting that vision out of your head and onto paper makes it more concrete. That allows you to see your vision more clearly, to flesh it out, and to better communicate it to others. It also allows you to see what may be missing or what may not be necessary. A tangible drawing makes your thinking and communication much more efficient!
Drawing out your vision and keeping it someplace where everyone can easily see it, keeps your vision front and center in everyone's mind, which fuels the motivation needed to continue moving forward. A physical image also allows everyone to see how far you've already come, hopefully prompting you to celebrate those successes along the way.
So pick up those markers and start drawing! Remember, you're drawing to communicate here, not to create the next Mona Lisa!
Check out One Squiggly Line's About Visual Thinking page to learn more.
Creativity & Visual Thinking: Love is Powerful!
Do you know what love feels like?
Does it make your heart skip several beats? Does it make you feel nervous? Excited? Content? Happy? Calm?
Love feels different for everyone - we each have our own love language. It’s our goal to identify how we respond and react to love.
In order to do so, we must become more familiar with ourselves.
This doesn’t just apply to romantic relationships. This applies to all aspects of our lives - our jobs, our friends, ourselves, as well as our significant others.
It’s important to fall in love with our lives, or at least certain aspects of them, as our lives are too short for mediocracy. Our lives are too short for mediocre careers, hobbies and relationships.
We must not settle for something that doesn’t stir our heart. We must try and live our lives in accordance with our passions.
In order to find love, we must know what we’re passionate about.
This all takes takes time, experience, and even failure. We must not be afraid of encountering new experiences, as every new and unfamiliar experience is valuable in helping us learn more about ourselves.
How are you going to learn more about yourself and your love language? What experiences do you want to have this year? What areas do you want to grow in?
Learn more about Visual Thinking
Creativity: 10 Ways to Shake Things Up!
Take a cold shower
This will likely be an unfamiliar experience, allowing you to create new neural connections.
Make a new meal without a recipe
This will force you to be comfortable without all of the answers in front of you
Try a new hairstyle
A new change could inspire you!
Create a new outfit that you’ve never worn before
Mixing and matching will help you form new styles. A new outfit can give you a new vibe, which can inspire confidence.
Journal about your day
This reflection time will allow you to absorb what you’ve learned throughout the day. Journaling will also allow you to look back on old memories and see patterns in your life.
Take a new route that you haven’t taken before
This will give you a new perspective. This will take you out of auto-pilot mode, and force you to think in different ways.
Rearrange your room or living space
This can create a fresh environment and get you out of a routine feeling
Ask more questions
The more curious you are, the more you will learn.
Limit or eliminate social media for a day
You can use the extra time gained from eliminating social media to be more productive. You can spend this time in silence. It will likely be an unfamiliar experience.
Exercise your body and mind
Whether working out, doing yoga or meditating, this will allow your body and mind to relax and take a break from life.
Giving your mind a break allows creative ideas to flow naturally.
Hire me to shake things up for you!
Creativity & Visual Thinking: Go for Quantity!
Creativity demands quantity. Creativity comes from being exposed to a lot of different stimuli. It comes from having a lot of different experiences. It’s being able to draw from each of these experiences, and the unique reservoir associated with it. When we have a lot of different experiences, we can continue to build upon new and old ideas with the wisdom we’ve gained.
In order to come up with a great idea, we need to have large quantity of ideas to pick and choose from, and experiment with. It’s easy to pick the first ideas that come to our mind, and it’s oftentimes the case that we stop after the first few ideas and fail to go further.
We need to open our minds to more ideas. We can’t stop at our first ideas. Our first ideas are typically generic, and already thought of before. The more ideas we come up with, and the more we suspend our judgement, the more novel our ideas are. We must stretch our minds to think further, and to suspend any judgement.
This is particularly helpful with brainstorming - of trying to come up with a good idea, whether for a work project or a personal project.
The creative mind is the mind that doesn’t stop at the first idea.
Visual thinking is a simple way to increase the amount of knowledge that sticks in your brain. And the more knowledge you have, the more building block you have to create with.
Contact me to bring the power of visuals to your next meeting, events, or project.
Creativity: We All Have It — Reignite Yours!
Think back to when you were a kid. Do you remember your personality? Do you remember any quirks you had?
And if you can’t remember that far back, think about the little kids you know, whether family, friends, or even strangers.
They all have one thing in common - they’re at the the most creative stage in their life.
Children are at a stage where they haven’t been conditioned to many routines and norms. They are completely themselves - unfiltered and raw.
...Always asking why
...Not caring too much of what others think about their appearance or their actions
...Saying whatever comes to mind
...Not holding back any ounce of laughter
As we grow older, eventually we don’t question as much
Eventually the routines of life become mainstream
Eventually our imagination grows stale
We hold back our laughter more and more
And eventually we lose the perspective of what could be in exchange for what is
Creativity gets taught out of us
Our teachers telling us to write in 12 pt. Arial font.
Our parents not having enough patience to answer all of our why’s.
Our own inflicted judgements
We become afraid of failure. Of messing up. Of saying the wrong thing. Of being judged.
To the point where we’ve lost ourselves in exchange for a mask that society has handed us.
We have unlearned creativity.
We all have the ability to be creative, but it's our job to learn it again.
Visual thinking is a great way to jumpstart your creativity, whether personally or professionally, alone or with a group. Simply watching someone else create something can inspire creative thinking and actions. Contact me to bring the power of visuals to your next event, meeting, or project and reclaim your creativity!
Visual Thinking & Lettering: When Things Go Wrong
Visual Thinking & Creativity: Switch Perspectives
One great way to think more creatively is to switch your perspectives. Try looking at things from the perspective of a child. Or a superhero. Or a rock star. Or your favorite movie character. You can choose anyone — dead or alive, real or fictional, human or not. Just pick someone and step into their shoes for a minute to see things through their eyes. Another word for that is empathy.
You can also switch perspectives physically. Try walking into a new room. Or taking your work outside. Or maybe lying down to think. Or simply standing up for a while instead of staying seated.
Anything that causes you to see things in a new way can ignite your creativity. So give it a try and see what works for you!
Visual Thinking, Creativity, & Lettering: Time constraints
Need a quick way to be more visually and creatively productive? Set a time limit! That way, you're more likely to stay focused. Since there's really no time to critique your work, you won't! It may not be perfect, buy you'll keep going and make whatever you did work. That builds momentum and stamina to see things through. And finishing things leads to greater satisfaction and confidence. All of that carries over to whatever you tackle next. Maybe that's why innovation comes from chaos instead of void...
Visual Thinking & Graphic Recording: Wedding Showers
Graphic recording is most common in business meetings, conferences, and other events. It's great for more personal occasions, too. Like weddings or wedding showers, as this drawing shows. Not only is this a great way to remember an important day, but the advice of friends and family, too!
Visual Thinking & Lettering: Design, Don't Write!
Fancy lettering is great. Simple lettering can be great, too. If you think about each letter as a part of a design instead of just a plain old letter.
One way to turn simple letters into a design is to switch up the sizes. Make some of the letters bigger than normal. Make others smaller. Switch up upper and lowercase, too.
The only rule here is that whatever you end up with is visually interesting. And you'll most likely want to be sure people can actually read the message, too!