Creative Ways to Be #Creative

"You can learn how to be more creative. Creativity is mostly skill, not just a gift, and this skill can be developed"

 

How To Be More Creative: 10 Surprising Ways

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” — Erich Fromm

Can anyone be creative?

Most of us understand creativity as being able to paint a stunning picture, write a bestselling book, design beautiful clothes, create delicious new recipes, or write killer computer programs. It’s a talent that not all of us have.

We cannot all be artists, designers, or the best cooks in town. Or can we?

 

 

The most creative people on the planet will admit that their work is 10% talent and 90% hard work — the practicing and polishing of their skills.That’s right! Talent is not the major component of creativity, so you don’t need it in order to be creative.Creativity is, in fact, a skill that can be acquired and mastered at any age. (1)

Let’s take a look at ways you can actively develop your creativity.

Read More 


LEARN MORE

GET OUT OF THE BOX, Or CIRCLE?

#BrainCare - Creative Writing is Great #Therapy Tool

"People often associate creative writing with the idea of expressing negative emotions, but it can actually be easier to master when you’re feeling mentally well"

4 Ways to Use Creative Writing for Self-care

Creativity is an aspect of self-care that often goes unexplored. You may have been recommended to keep a mood diary, or write down your problems as a form of therapy, but there is a way to use creative writing as a self-care tool that goes beyond the idea of journalling...

Having a crafty hobby is a fun way to pass the time, but research suggests that creativity can have a tangible impact on our mental wellbeing. In 2017, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Arts, Health and Wellbeing reported that the “act of creation, and our appreciation of it, provides an individual experience that can have positive effects on our physical and mental health, and wellbeing”.

Supporting this, a study has found that 79% of people in deprived communities in London ate more healthily after participating in group art projects, while 77% engaged in more physical activity. Overall, 82% enjoyed greater wellbeing, proving that an enriched creative life can contribute to a more positive mindset.

Read More

LEARN MORE

Key Life Success Factor - #KLSF - Habitually #Exercise Your Brain, Intellectually

"Novelty, variety and challenge are the true keys to evaluating any brain game’s effectiveness"

Are Brain Games Effective?

Gary Dashney

Go into any bookstore and you’re sure to see them: entire shelves full of brain teasers, puzzles, crosswords, sudoku, etc. These books are loaded with all sorts of mental exercises and brain games that supposedly will improve your brain fitness and function simply by playing them.

You can find thousands of these sorts of brain boosters online as well, many of them for free. You’ll also find an assortment of commercially available products online from companies who specialize in what they call “scientifically designed” brain games.

The big question, however, is whether engaging in any of these mental exercises can actually improve your brain fitness. And if so, how do you decide which ones are better than others?

Neuroplasticity — The Basis for Brain Change

Over the last 20 years, scientists have discovered that our brain can:

• Grow new connections
• Grow new neurons
• Rewire itself

The ability of our brain to do all this is what neuroscientists call neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity refers to the ability of neurons to forge new connections — essentially rewiring the brain.

Read More

LEARN MORE

EXERCISES TO IMPROVE LOGIC AND MEMORY

Simple #Game Plan For Creative #Writers

 "Creative writing is a skill and not a task. Like any skill it needs conscious effort and constant practice to improve and be polished"

 

Step-by-step to creative writing

Here are some strategies to help students to overcome their hesitation in writing and enhance their creative writing skills:

Using best specimens

Before beginning to write, students must be exposed to the best examples of a particular style followed by brainstorming and discussion on what makes them the best.

Picking up topics of interest

We cannot expect students to know enough to write on any given topic. Boys might like sports and cars while girls may follow popular culture like fashion, music and so on. But these are very broad themes. We need to narrow down to specific topics like ‘The importance of sports in students’ life’, ‘your favourite music’ and so on. Let the students decide the topics on which they would like to write. After deciding the topic the next step would be:

Developing relevant vocabulary...

Read More

LEARN MORE

FIRST; Grab Their Attention 

#HBR : Can #AI Under-Performance Be Fixed?

'AI strategies’ fail because AI is a means, not an end. “Do you have an AI strategy?” makes as much sense as asking, “Do we have an Excel strategy?” 

Why AI Underperforms and What Companies Can Do About It

Why is the gap between companies’ AI ambition and their actual adoption so large? The answer is not primarily technical. It is organizational and cultural. A massive skills and language gap has emerged between key organizational decision makers and their “AI teams.” It is a barrier that promises to stall, delay, or sink algorithmic innovations. And it is growing, not shrinking.

The problem is that most executives are selected for their ability to talk to other people. They have complex and well-honed abilities for listening, empathizing, deliberating, energizing, and de-energizing meetings, emoting and reading others’ emotional landscapes and adapting their ways of being to seemingly intractable social situations.

Those who develop machine learning solutions to business problems are selected for their ability to talk to machines. They write pseudo-code and code, develop large-scale platforms that scale to millions of users, aggregate data in multiple formats from multiple sources. They write interfaces for users that incentivize them to interact with the machines they build via combinations of words, images, colors, haptics, and action prompts.

Read More

LEARN MORE

AI GONE WRONG?

#BrainCare: Toxic #Sugars Causing Extensive #Health Issues

"Hypothesis: More sugar causes both more diabetes and more obesity"

Is Sugar an Addictive Poison?

 BY RONALD BAILEY  

The Case Against Sugar, by Gary Taubes, Knopf, 368 pp., 26.95.

Less than 1 percent of Americans—1.6 million people—were diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 1958. As of 2014, that figure had risen to 9.3 percent, or 29.1 million. If current trends continue, the figure could rise to more than 33 percent by 2050. Something has clearly gone wrong with American health.

The rising rate of diabetes is associated with the rising prevalence of obesity. Since the early 1960s, the percent of Americans who are obese—that is, whose body mass indexis greater than 30—has increased from 13 percent to 35.7 percent today. (Nearly 70 percent of Americans are overweight, meaning their BMIs are over 25.) Roughly put, the prevailing theory is that rising fatness causes rising diabetes.

But what if both are caused by something else? That is the intriguing and ultimately persuasive argument that Gary Taubes, author Why We Get Fat (2011) and cofounder of the Nutrition Science Initiative, makes in his new book, The Case Against Sugar.

Read More

LEARN MORE

SUGAR: THE BITTER TRUTH

BEWARE: #Marijuana Edibles Pose Serious #Health Risks

"Consumers aren't the only ones who need more education about edible products' effects, Armentano says. So do retailers selling them" 

Marijuana Edibles: Buyers and Users Beware

By Kathleen Doheny

April 9, 2019 -- When he arrived at the hospital by ambulance, the 70-year-old man said he felt like he was dying. He was pale, nauseated, and reported severe chest pain. "He had had hallucinations at home," says his doctor, Alexandra Saunders, MD, chief medical resident for Dalhousie University in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. Soon, the medical team confirmed he’d had a heart attack.

He had eaten a marijuana-laced lollipop, given to him by a friend who thought it might help him sleep. "I don’t know if we can say it caused the heart attack,'' Saunders says, citing the patient's pre-existing heart disease. ''We don't have enough guidance to say what a safe dose would be."

Other health experts share her concern over CBD edibles, including chocolates, brownies and other baked goods, snacks, drinks, and even pizza.

Read More

LEARN MORE

EDIBLES CAUSING MORE ER VISITS 

#BrainCare: Over 50 Makes #Exercise More Important

"Generally speaking, the more you exercise, the more benefit you get. And anything is better than nothing"

You Need Exercise Now More Than Ever

Let's face it: A 50- or 60-year-old body isn't the same as a 20-year-old one. You won't be able to do the same things -- nor should you. But exercise is key to your independence and a good quality of life as you age. So what do you need to think about to be healthy without hurting yourself?

What Exercise Does

You lose muscle mass as you get older, and exercise can help you rebuild it. Muscles also burn more calories than fat, even at rest, which will offset your slowing metabolism. Exercise helps stop, delay, and sometimes improve serious illnesses like heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, stroke, Alzheimer's disease, arthritis, and osteoporosis. It can help your brain stay sharp and keep you from falling into a funk.

Young or old, everyone needs different kinds. Cardio or aerobic exercise gets your heart rate up and makes you breathe harder, which builds your endurance and burns calories. Strength or weight training keeps your muscles ready for action. Flexibility exercises help you stay limber so you can have a full range of movement and avoid injury. Balance training becomes important after age 50, so you can prevent falls and stay active.

READ MORE

LEARN MORE

BALANCE EXERCISES TO PREVENT FALLS

Advance Your #Thinking With Mental #Models

"These general thinking tools are just 9 of the mental models that you can learn to think better."

How Mental Models Unlock Your Thinking

  By Shane Parrish 

The first thing I learned from Charlie Munger’s 1995 Speech, The Psychology of Human Misjudgment, was why my MBA was a waste of time. While I didn’t drop out of the program, I did stop doing homework. Instead I spend time reaching and learning about mental models and the various ways we mislead ourselves. By showing me the world had so much more to offer, Munger opened a door that has never closed.

Mental models are representation of how something works. We can’t keep all of the details of the world in our brains, so we use models to simplify the complex into understandable and organizable chunks. Whether we realize it or not, we then use these models every day to think, decide, and understand our world. They help us decide what information is relevant and what information is irrelevant.

While there are millions of mental models, I want to focus on nine that will help you think better that are in our book The Great Mental Models Volume 1: General Thinking Concepts (kindle, audible).

Read More

LEARN MORE

CHARLIE MUNGER"S 1995 Speech

Fabulous Growth Pace -Supporting #FridaysForFuture

Monthly Newsletter

March 2019
Supporting #FridaysForFuture; #SchoolStrike

Fabulous Growth Pace

 READERSHIP GROWTH SURGES

 to 214,789

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SHARE AND DISTRIBUTE

Launching Two NEW Exclusive Concepts

International Readership continues to surge with solid growth for the seventh record consecutive month; bringing the total for the year to 214,789 Back in July results were just over 13,940, which means that end of March growth to-date is still charging along at a dramatic percentage pace.

We are pleased to bring to all of our readers and followers two unique PCW concepts that we will continue to develop, research and refine for purposes of continuous improvement.  The first being - "Key Life Success Factors (KLSF)" and the second being "BrainCare." This month there were four articles that focused on these KLSF's - Creativity, Learning, Reading, and Brain Fitness all of which are common sense ideas, yet they still need our awareness and attention, from time to time. 

BrainCare articles will focus on maintaining the optimal physical condition of the brain which is forged by the integration of these four major areas: Diet, Sleep, Exercise and Intellectual Development. In our view, our focus on this topical area is to encourage attention and practices similar to dental, foot, heart or  care for other areas of the body. Why not?  As the physical care of the brain should be at the very top of our health priorities for obvious and comparative reasons.

Here are the Top FIVE Readers' Choice Posts for the month of March, 2019

These top readers' monthly choice posts are specifically selected based on readers' interactions and comments plus the  guidance and scope of our "Creative Mission"

Key Life Success Factors (KLSF) - Keeping Your Brain Fit

"The more intellectual stimulation you have, the more various neural circuits are used. And the more circuits you have, the harder it is for the changes associated with neurodegenerative diseases to manifest," 

How to Keep Your Brain Fit

Your brain is truly the most amazing part of your body. It comes up with creative ways to express your thoughts and emotions, coordinates movements from chopping onions to running an obstacle course, stores your most precious childhood memories, and solves the Sunday crossword. But it's easy to take those powers for granted.

Read More

Key Life Success Factors (KLSF) - Unlock Your Creativity

Creativity isn’t some mystical power, it’s something we are all born with. We’ve just set our lives up to squash it out. Here’s how to let it back in.

WHY IT’S HARD TO BE CREATIVE  

Think you’re not creative? You’re selling yourself short. Humans are inherently creative, born with the capacity to reflect, evaluate, come up with ideas, and find connections, says Rahaf Harfoush, author of Hustle and Float: Reclaim Your Creativity and Thrive in a World Obsessed with Work. “We all have the capacity to be creative, and we can all improve those skills,” she says. “Like any aptitude, some are better than others and some have a stronger skill set. We’re not all LeBron James, but anybody can learn basketball.”

Read More

Key Life Success Factors (KLSF); Learn, Learn, Learn...

“The more I learn, the more I learn how little I know.” Socrates

If Socrates Was A Life Long Learner In A Digital Age

The intellectual roots of the critical thinking needed to be a successful lifelong learner can be traced back 2,500 years ago to the quotes, the teachings and the vision of Socrates of ancient Greece. When Socrates said the “unexamined life is not worth living”, he was creating what has come to be famously known as the Socratic principle of questioning (National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking, 2019). Socratic questioning is a mode of questioning that deeply examines the strength of a definition, justification or logic of a claim, theory, line of reasoning or stance. Lifelong learners seek to examine the claims and theories within their disciplines’ body of knowledge before accepting them as worthy of belief.

Read More

BrainCare: AA's Terrible Failure Rates - Estimated Over 90%

How a pseudo scientific, religious organization birthed the most trusted method of addiction treatment

"

“Peer reviewed studies peg the success rate of AA somewhere between five and 10 percent,” writes Dodes. “About one of every 15 people who enter these programs is able to become and stay sober.”

The Surprising Failures of 12 Steps

Say you’ve been diagnosed with a serious, life-altering illness or psychological condition. In lieu of medication, psychotherapy, or a combination thereof, your doctor prescribes nightly meetings with a group of similarly afflicted individuals, and a set of 12 non-medical guidelines for recovery, half of which require direct appeals to God. What would you do?

Read More

Key Life Success Factor (KLSF): "READ" - 5 Hours Minimum Weekly

“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none. Zero.” - Charlie Monger

5-Hour Rule: If you’re not spending 5 hours per week learning, you’re being irresponsible

Michael Simmons

Why did the busiest person in the world, former president Barack Obama, read an hour a day while in office?Why has the best investor in history, Warren Buffett, invested 80% of his time in reading and thinking throughout his career?Why has the world’s richest person, Bill Gates, read a book a week during his career? And why has he taken a yearly two-week reading vacation throughout his entire career?Why do the world’s smartest and busiest people find one hour a day for deliberate learning (the 5-hour rule), while others make excuses about how busy they are? What do they see that others don’t?

Read More

Proud to Support This Growing International Cause

#StrikeForClimate #Fridays4Future
#ClimateAction

May 3, 2019

1.437.226.9025
 Picasso Creative Writing Method
" followed by tens of thousands world-wide via email and social media "  

Sincerely,

Ms Terri McNeil

Managing Editor