Talent Development Resources

Living more than your cubicle life

2007-04-28T16:10:00.000-07:00

An engineer, Mel Rusnov also loves music and describes cultivating that passion in her essay "The Artistry in Hidden Talents" in the book This I Believe:

"I believe in cultivating hidden talents, buried and unrelated to what we do for a living. In ordinary life, I'm a civil engineer. I make a satisfying, comfortable living working quietly in my cubicle. But in my other life, I am a pianist, bringing to life with my own hands the genius of Bach, Mozart and Chopin.

"I believe we are more than the inhabitants of our cubicles, more than engineers or even parents, husbands and wives. I believe we are transformed and connected by the power and beauty of our creativity."

Continued on The Inner Entrepreneur
~~

Dreaming bigger

2007-04-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

Jack Canfield, co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, and The Success Principles, writes in his article What Do You Want in Life? about how to develop attitudes and strategies to achieve more.

"One of the few differences between the superachievers and the rest of the world is that the superachievers simply dream bigger," he says.

"High achievers see the world from a whole different perspective — as a place where amazing things can happen, where billions of lives can be improved, where new technology can change the way we live, and where the world's resources can be leveraged for the greatest possible mutual gain.

"They believe anything is possible, and they believe they have an integral part in creating it."
~~

It's okay to look inside

2007-04-27T18:06:00.000-07:00

Creative inspiration and energy can come from many sources, but the most important source is us - our own abilities, thoughts and feelings, including the inner stuff we may not want to look at because we think it is "immoral" or "sick" or otherwise "bad."

Artists, of course, realize that it is not only okay to look into our hidden inner selves, but that doing so can reveal creative material and insights.

In her new film "Stephanie Daley," Amber Tamblyn portrays a 16-year-old girl who is accused of murdering her newborn, but claims she didn't know she was pregnant and the baby was stillborn.

"I feel like it's been a friend of mine or a little sister of a friend of mine or myself or my mother," she said.

"I don't mean that in a 'there's a little Stephanie Daley in all of us' way. But I think there is quiet vulnerability that we all have to allow us to shift in and out of the gray areas of what is right and what is wrong and what is moral and not moral.

"This for me was a way to look at gray areas in our lives, at the things that we were terrified of."

[Los Angeles Times April 26, 2007; photo from "Stephanie Daley"]

Director Mike Nichols once commented, "We tend to neglect the place from which the best ideas come, namely that part of ourselves that dreams. The unconscious is our best collaborator."

The book Jung on Active Imagination notes that Carl Jung developed this concept of active imagination during a period of his life when he was "disoriented and experienced intense inner turmoil; he suffered from lethargy and fears, and his moods threatened to overwhelm him.

"Jung searched for a method to heal himself from within, and finally decided to engage with the impulses and images of his unconscious. It was through the rediscovery of the symbolic play of his childhood that Jung was able to reconnect with his creative spirit." [From publisher summary]

More on the creative inner parts of ourselves can be found on many pages - including:
depth psychology
depth psychology: sites articles books
the shadow self
shadow self: sites articles books
~~

We want both creativity and mental health

2007-04-24T22:31:00.000-07:00

Eric Maisel, PhD notes that using a mindfulness strategy to become more centered may be "fighting nature," but thinks "That isn’t to say that it isn’t a good thing to fight nature.

"For instance, you want productive obsessions but you don’t want the kind of unmediated manias that caused Virginia Woolf to crack on three separate occasions.

"You want the existential questioning of a Tolstoy or a Van Gogh but you don’t want the debilitating depressions.

"There is a way to be that is passionate, wild, and productive but that isn’t also self-destructive, painful, and despairing. Can that 'balance' actually be struck in real life?

"Whether it can or it can’t, it is the prize upon which each creative person ought to keep his eye: great creativity and mental health in the same package!"

Eric Maisel, PhD - from interview Ten Zen Seconds for Purpose, Power and Calm - about his new book.
~~

Still gifted as an adult?

2007-04-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

The SENG [Supporting Emotional Needs of the Gifted] newsletter includes this Q&A:

Q: If I was gifted as a child, am I still gifted now? If I didn't use my 'giftedness', is it gone?

SENG staff: Perhaps. Probably the more important consideration is whether you are still developing your potential. ... As we often wonder with children, however, if you aren’t involved in experiences that allow you to demonstrate your talents, then how might you know if you are still gifted?

Continued on GT Adults
~~

Writer Janet Fitch on using the deep parts in yourself

2007-04-19T22:19:00.000-07:00

"Anytime you work with materials that are deep parts of yourself, you feel revulsion at showing things about yourself that you don't want people to know... It's your flaws, not your strengths that go down in the depths of your books. You're exposed, like dreaming you're naked in a public building."

[HAVE YOU BEEN TO THE DARK PLACES YOUR CHARACTERS HAVE BEEN?]

"I've been depressed many times in my life. But under it all I'm an optimist..."

Janet Fitch, from interview - more on The Inner Writer
~~

Einstein and being a non-conformist

2007-04-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

In his Wired magazine article The World Needs More Rebels Like Einstein, Walter Isaacson notes that "Einstein alone was impertinent enough to discard the notion of absolute time, one of the sacred tenets of classical physics since Newton.

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." Albert Einstein

That quote affirms one of the main values of non-conforming. It is in the book by Neuropsychologist David Weeks - Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness, and Weeks lists as other eccentrics William Blake, Alexander Graham Bell, Emily Dickinson, Charlie Chaplin, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Howard Hughes.

Continued on Developing Talent
~~

Judy Swank and her daughter Hilary on courage

2007-04-15T21:06:00.000-07:00

Exploring who we are, putting ourselves into places and situations that develop our talents and abilities, standing up to internal and external pressures that get in the way - all that takes courage, and dealing with fear in positive ways.

After being fired from her office job of nine years, Judy Swank decided to move to California to support her daughter Hilary in her dream to be an actor.

"Our grand adventure to Hollywood was the first time that I did the unexpected," Judy Swank writes. "The first time I really took a risk. I had no money and could certainly be thought of as either extremely naïve or just plain crazy. But whatever was ahead of us, I knew we would figure it out."

Continued on Developing Talent
~~

Growing from painful times into creative ventures

2007-04-14T13:45:00.000-07:00

In her article How to Turn a Negative Experience Into a Positive Way to Make a Living Without a Job, Valerie Young talks about seven people who have found adversity to be a catalyst for new career opportunities, such as Scott Adams who used his "mind-numbing experience in corporate America as the inspiration for his management lampooning cartoon Dilbert."

Young writes, "It’s said that the most painful times of our lives turn out to offer the most opportunities for personal growth.... Make a list of your natural gifts – things like writing, sewing, or listening.

"Then, just as these innovative people did, find a way to use your love of teaching, creating, counseling, writing, speaking, organizing, cooking, drawing, and so on to share what you’ve learned with others."
~~

Hypnosis and achievement

2007-04-14T14:08:00.000-07:00

Clinical Hypnotherapist Steve G. Jones writes in his article Motivate Yourself through Hypnosis about the value of hypnosis: "Ideas, goals, and dreams could be a reality if only you could make yourself do the necessary steps to achieve them. That is how hypnosis works to motivate you to put into action the plans you have been waiting to implement 'someday.'

"Hypnosis is often misunderstood. Many people believe it can force you to act and react in whatever way the hypnotherapist instructs. Hypnosis cannot make a person into someone different and cannot control a person’s mind. Hypnosis can only draw upon what is within the person."

In another article - The Language of Self-Hypnosis - Adam Eason warns against using limiting or distorting language: "Avoid using words that are putdowns. They don't really have a place in self-hypnosis or your mind at all. Avoid the following words and words like them: Untidy, Dirty, Smelly, Ugly, Stupid, Lazy, Hopeless, Disliked, Unkempt, Smelly, Idiot, Embarrass, Ridiculous... Your internal dialogue and self-hypnosis sessions are better without these words.

"Keep aware of and avoid if you feel they limit you.. words that are absolutes. These are words that have no flexibility, that are final. For example: Always, totally, closed, never, finish, impossible, definitely, completely.."

Adam Eason is a UK based consultant [website], speaker and author of The Secrets of Self Hypnosis: Harnessing the Power of Your Unconscious Mind.

Painter Robert Genn talks about using strategies like "trance inducing music" and relaxation techniques in his article Creative self hypnosis.

If it works for you, making use of hypnosis can be a helpful approach toward enhancing personal development and creativity.

Also see related post Can hypnosis enhance creativity?
~~

The Secret and spirituality

2007-04-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

In his article The "Secret" Is Really No Secret At All, Dennis Merritt Jones, DD says "There is, without question, a spiritual element that is infused in the Law of Attraction that is no secret.

"Buddha certainly knew the power of the Law of Attraction, when, in the Dhammapada, he is quoted as saying, 'Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draw it... joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.'

"Likewise, the great teacher Jesus proved he too understood the same principle when he is quoted as saying, 'It is done unto you as you believe.' (Matt. 8:13) That sounds like the Law of Attraction to me."

[Image from book A Gradual Awakening, by Stephen Levine - from the page Buddhist psychology]
~~

Kurt Vonnegut: This guesser or that one

2007-04-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

"Most of you, if not all of you, like me, feel inadequately educated. That is an ordinary feeling for a member of our species. One of the most brilliant human beings of all times, George Bernard Shaw said on his 75th birthday or so that at last he knew enough to become a mediocre office boy....

"Shaw, if he were alive today, would envy us the solid information that we have or can get about the nature of the universe, about time and space and matter, about our own bodies and brains, about the resources and vulnerabilities of our planet, about how all sorts of human beings actually talk and feel and live.

"This is the information revolution. We have taken it very badly so far. Information seems to be getting in the way all the time. Human beings have had to guess about almost everything for the past million years or so.

"Our most enthralling and sometimes terrifying guessers are the leading characters in our history books. I will name two of them: Aristotle and Hitler. One good guesser and one bad one.

"The masses of humanity, having no solid information to tell them otherwise, have had little choice but to believe this guesser or that one... Some of the loudest, most proudly ignorant guessing in the world is going on in Washington today. Our leaders are sick of all the solid information that has been dumped on humanity by research and scholarship and investigative reporting.

"They think that the whole country is sick of it, and they want standards, and it isn’t the gold standard. They want to put us back on the snake-oil standard."

Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) - in his column entry Your Guess Is as Good as Mine, In These Times, December 12, 2005
~~

Jim Rohn on self-direction

2007-04-14T15:07:00.000-07:00

Isn't self-expression really self-direction? How you think, how you move, how you motivate yourself. ...

Positive self-direction says, "I know who I am and I know where I want to go. I'm accumulating knowledge and experiences and feelings and philosophies that will help prepare me for opportunities that I know will show up without notice or any help on my part."

Because you know where you want to go, you have already been working on the parts of your personality that will make you better.

From article Ambitiously Pursuing Your Own Self-Direction - by Jim Rohn
~~

Paul Pearsall, Ph.D. on The Beethoven Factor

2007-04-15T15:00:00.000-07:00

The Beethoven Factor is "SIG - Stress Induced Growth.”

Like the composer, there are persons for whom adversity is a stimulus for personal growth and creativity. Also like Beethoven, they aren't "super humans."

Like all of us, they are flawed beings, but something within and about them allows them to construe their lives with an upward psychological trajectory even when things seem at their worst.

They are not just naive blind optimists. They are "benefit finders" who can discover growth where many others see only disaster.

From interview by Steve Kayser
~~