Archive | April, 2009

How To Be More Creative

Welcome to this month’s issue of “The Creativity Times” – the online, not-for-print, ezine that explores the nature of creativity and gives you tips to improve your own creative abilities. This month we’re featuring an interview with some of the top creative minds in the world. Our ace reporter Art Viceity traveled far and wide, to gain access to some of the most elusive and creative minds in history. Yes, I said history. Art Viceity was also able to travel back in time and meet with the likes of Picasso, Dali and the grand daddy of creativity himself – Leonardo Di Vinci. How is this possible you ask? A little imagination, research and, ahem, creativity, went a long way in producing this piece.

Art: What does it mean to be creative?

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7 Ways & 7 Days to Renew Your Life

To renew and reinvent our lives we need a plan. Here it is: a seven-day process to work with over and over. This plan incorporates physical, mental and spiritual work. Use the whole seven-day process, or choose any one of the days to work with as you create the life you want.

DAY 1: RE-CHARGE A Day of Commitment

Focus on changing your mind-set: This is the day to change the thought patterns playing in your mind. Get rid of phrases such as “I can’t.” “Why does this happen to me?” “Things always seem to go wrong.” “After three bad things happen, life will change for the better.” Insert thoughts such as “I can do it.” ” There are creative solutions to any problem.”

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Exploring Best Friendship

“True friendship is like sound health, the value of it is seldom known until it is lost.” -Charles Caleb Colton

When somebody says “best friend,” who is the first person to pop into your head? Is it your spouse, your next door neighbor, or even your own pet?

What if no one pops into your head?

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An Invisible Cup of Tea, and Other Ways to Take Shelter From The Storms of Life

The rapid fire pace of daily life takes its toll and often fails to give us even a moment to pause, recover from, or even consider what’s going on around us. Our world is more frenetic, more overwhelming and more opportunity- laden than at any time before in human experience. Modern life has become a hail storm of input, activity, connectivity, and a never ending flow of information. Pressured situations come at us from all sides – at work, in social settings, or at home.

If we’re to make the most of the whirlwind existence sweeping around us, then it’s a good bet that we’ll need some shelter from the storm from time to time. We can’t stay inside forever — literally or figuratively— not unless we want to give up participating in the world and the company of our fellow human beings. So, how do we find a moment of shelter from the storm?

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Are You Trying to Live Up to Other People’s Values?

Do you often feel guilty about things that you aren’t doing – or things that you are doing? Do you find yourself saying “I really should…” or “I know I’m supposed to…” or “I must…”? Are you trying to live up to someone else’s values?

There are so many pressures on us to conform. You might think that you have your own priorities straight (and that you’re failing to meet your own standards), but chances are, you’re being influenced by a lot of external pressures. These could come from:

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Love Changes Everything

“Love, love changes everything … Nothing in the world will ever be the same.” ~ from Andrew Lloyd Weber’s “Aspects of Love”

The black jeep drives out of the Denny’s parking lot in Gallup, New Mexico, my daughter Guinevere waving from the back seat. It turns south on Muñoz Drive, then west on I-40 on its way back to Sedona, Arizona.

For ten minutes, I sit numbly in my car, unable to turn the key in the ignition and follow Muñoz to I-40′s eastbound ramp, for the two-and-a-half-hour trip home to Albuquerque. When I do, it’s a long time before I can turn on the radio or call a friend, the two distractions that often ease long drives for me.

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How to Stop Procrastinating & Start Writing That Book Inside You

Whenever I tell a new person I’ve met that I’ve recently had a memoir published, the response is, invariably, “You wouldn’t believe my story. I should write a book, too.” And my response to them is, invariably, “Then, why don’t you?”

The gap between having the desire to write a book and actually sitting down to write one is quite large, but with some effort, it can be bridged.

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