The Power of Creative Intelligence: 10 ways to tap into your creative genius. Tony Buzan

displaying them in your home, or using it for wood-turning; making patchwork quilts from a multitude of scraps of otherwise useless material; decorating your dinner table by putting a flower on each person’s plate and using shells from the beach from which to serve your salt and pepper; or finding new and different routes to get to work each week, are all things that take little effort, and which add immeasurably to the creative feel of your life.

      Holiday times and seasonal celebrations especially, are wonderful opportunities for displaying your Creative Intelligence. Make it a Creative Feast with decorations, visual beauty and visual humour. Create your own cards and gifts to give to people, or plan a dinner party for your friends – the possibilities are endless!

       6. Your Mastermind Group

      All the great creative geniuses had heroes or heroines to whom they looked for inspiration. Alexander the Great had his tutor Aristotle; Julius Caesar had Alexander the Great; all the great geniuses of the Italian Renaissance had the examples of Classical antiquity; the Russian Empress Catherine the Great looked to Peter the Great for inspiration; Mohammed Ali had Sugar Ray Robinson; Isaac Newton had Socrates; Stephen Hawking had Isaac Newton, and so on, throughout the pantheon of genius.

      The technique the creative greats used was to hold imaginary conversations with their heroes, asking them for ‘thoughts’ and inspiration. This Creative Thinking technique can be used for pursuing mighty scientific and cultural goals, and it can also be used by everyone in their normal daily lives.

      I have personally found this technique exceptionally valuable in my life, and have used it successfully for over 20 years. It has allowed me to be especially creative whenever I have encountered any major opportunity or problem. The way I use this technique is as follows: when confronted with a situation which requires help from my Mastermind Group of heroes and heroines, I select the ones who are most appropriate for the given situation and I then imagine what advice each would give me in order to take greatest advantage of the situation. I select my heroes and heroines for their unique creative approaches, for their energy and for their astonishing success, knowing that all of this will ‘feed in’ to me and my own Creative Thinking processes.

      Members of my Mastermind Group on whom I regularly call for help are:

       Our Creativity guide Leonardo da Vinci, for his boundless Creativity and inventiveness.

       Queen Elizabeth I, for her ability to overcome astonishing odds, to be very flexible while at the same time being steadfast, and to learn with incredible rapidity.

       Buddha, for his deep exploration of the self, and for his ability to withstand the utmost suffering and deprivation.

       Mohammed Ali, for his astonishing originality and creativity, combined with his representation and defence of a minority group.

       Morihei Ueshiba, the founder of the Japanese martial art of Aikido. In this art, the Aikido student is taught to turn any violence into tranquillity, while simultaneously remaining steadfast.