James C. Kaufman is a creativity researcher and Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, San Bernardino.
Here are some excerpts from his Psychology Today blog post “A Creativity Researcher’s Thoughts on the Oscars.”
If anyone gets discouraged about their creative progress in their careers, take heart from Mauro Fiore.
The cinematographer won the Academy Award for [...]
“I was at dance school doing about 35 hours practice a week until I was 14. Then ballet started to grate – the whole idea of trying to attain perfection started to ruin the experience.” Mia Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland”)
What’s so bad about perfection? Isn’t it what we all strive for? In her interview, excerpted [...]
“Talent will out.” If that old aphorism were really true, those with the highest potential to make the world better would inevitably have the opportunities and power to provide a constant supply of art masterpieces, to lead medical, political and business organizations, or otherwise realize their advanced potentials.
What keeps so many high potential people from [...]
The Psychology Today article, Field Guide to The Self-Doubter: Extra Credit, by Susan Pinker, excerpted below, brings insight into the thoughts and feelings many people have about being incompetent or impostors:
Not giving herself credit
Rosalyn Lang has a Ph.D. in molecular biology, has just completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University, and recently launched her own [...]
“If you’re going to spend a life in the arts, you need to be infused with a sense of gratitude and a sense of wonder. It’s a privilege to do this profession.
“But there is a payment you have to make for that privilege, which is to do your best all the time.
“To challenge [...]
Amber Riley is one of the dynamic actor-singers on the musical/comedy series Glee. She recalls her rejection from American Idol:
“My life was crushed when they told me ‘No.’ But… rejection like that only makes you stronger, gets you asking — how can I better myself?”
Continued on The Inner Actor.
Excerpted from article Marketing Strategies: 7 Tips to Creating Success From the “Inside Out” By Maya Bailey, Ph.D. :
“Why do most business owners fail to achieve their dreams and reach their financial goals? Is it a lack of motivation, a lack of drive or a lack of business know how?
“In my 12 years of coaching [...]
A critic once described the mind of Jonathan Miller as “a turmoil of sizzling wires, connecting drama with anthropology, literature with quantum physics, linguistics with genetic theory.”
From the PBS site of Bill Moyers Journal / Jonathan Miller
What caught my attention to write this post was the discord Dr. Miller has expressed about his choosing various [...]
In his article Changing Beliefs, Douglas Cartwright writes about “a biggie – changing toxic and unhealthy beliefs we may have about ourselves.”
He notes that in the book Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, “Avy Joseph talks about unhealthy beliefs often being constructed with terms such as ‘must, should’ and ‘have to’.
“[Joseph] gives an example of a woman called [...]
The purposes of this site – Talent Development Resources – include celebrating multitalented creative people, and exploring how they realize their many talents.
In his post “That’s DR. Winnie to you: A New Child Star Stereotype” (on his Psychology Today blog), creativity researcher James C. Kaufman, Ph.D. writes about a number of people well-known as child [...]
“I have things in my head that are not like what anyone has taught me…shapes and ideas so near to me…so natural to my way of being and thinking that it hasn’t occurred to me to put them down…”
From the Georgia O’Keeffe profile page.
Joan Allen plays O’Keeffe in the Lifetime drama premiering September 19, was [...]
High Intelligence Specialist Deborah L. Ruf, Ph.D. comments in her book Losing Our Minds: Gifted Children Left Behind about some of the factors in why there are fewer eminent women in most fields :
“In my experience, most girls and women, as a group, tend to see shades of meaning and concepts more easily and are [...]
See my related video Creative obsession: Adam Savage and Stanley Kubrick [link opens in new window/tab]
The video starts with a clip of Adam Savage talking about his passion for making a replica Dodo skeleton.
He relates how he collected thousands of images and documents, and crafted a beautiful museum-quality mounted skeleton of the defunct bird.
[Clip from [...]
Einstein’s concept that “time is relative depending on your state of motion” had been explored by others, but “they were too confined by the dogmas of the day.
“Einstein alone was impertinent enough to discard the notion of absolute time.” Walter Isaacson, who wrote the biography Einstein: His Life and Universe.
Robert Ornstein, PhD, author of The [...]
ScienceDaily — “The effect of anxiety on academic performance is not always obvious but new research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council suggests that there may be hidden costs.
“The research found that anxious individuals find it harder to avoid distractions and take more time to turn their attention from one task to the [...]
First, a provocative quote from psychiatrist Thomas Szasz:
“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.”
In the following clip from one of his many podcasts, Leo Laporte quotes internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis: “When times are tough, you invest [...]
The self-help ‘author’ Stuart Smalley, a fictional character created by satirist Al Franken on Saturday Night Live in the mid-90’s, had a certain goofy self-effacing charm, but a proclivity for psychobabble, using phrases often taken from common 12-step slogans, such as:
* “That’s just stinkin’ thinkin!”
* “You’re should-ing all over yourself.”
* “Denial ain’t just a river [...]
“Why do some people rise to the top while others languish? Are there personal characteristics that enable some individuals and groups to thrive during tough times?
“What initially began as a study to define greatness evolved into a quest to uncover those characteristics that people who were deemed ‘great’ exude.”
From article Pathways to Greatness – a [...]
Wunderkind, genius, prodigy. Freak, geek, nerd. How we label exceptional people and ourselves affects our identity and what we think about the reality and value of our talents, and the possibilities of expressing them in the world.
One of the most positive experiences for me in high school was my friendship with an artist (painter, sculptor) [...]
One of the many things that can fuel our sense of failure is comparing what we do and attempt to do with what others have accomplished.
J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, is, of course, a prime example of success and accomplishment.
But in this video, her Commencement Address st Harvard University, June 5, 2008, [...]
When something happens to us or we do something that can be called a failure, there are often ideas and feelings we attach to that experience, such as thinking we are lacking or insufficient, or have lost personal power or strength, or we call ourselves a person who does not succeed.
So we may think it [...]
malcolm gladwell on outliers, linda silverman on giftedness, high ability, high aptitude personality
Dr. Linda Silverman on gifted children
“The natural trajectory of giftedness in childhood is not a six-figure salary, perfect happiness, and a guaranteed place in Who’s Who. It is the deepening of the personality, the strengthening of one’s value system, the creation of greater [...]
Rejected for excellence
Children with outstanding talents sometimes get rewards and acclaim, but many are overlooked, discounted or unsupported. Adults with exceptional talents can also live on the fringes of recognition and contribution to society, some by choice, but often on account of mainstream discomfort with outsiders.
Even those who are called eccentric may want to live [...]
Comfortable with being different
A new Los Angeles Times profile describes some of Barack Obama’s journey, including these excerpts:
As a scholarship student at Occidental College in Los Angeles in 1979, Obama faced assertions of identity everywhere: the Democrat/Socialist Alliance, Black Student Assn., Jewish Student Action Coalition, feminist support group, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan.
It was here [...]
In an interview about acting in her new film Bug, Ashley Judd describes the state of mind she values in her work:
“For me, what I look for is to do a take and have very little if any memory of what just happened. That’s the sort of take where I’m satisfied and sated and I [...]
Gordon Parks [1912-2006] was often referred to as a renaissance man, as noted in an obituary by Dennis McLellan [Los Angeles Times March 8, 2006], and lived up to the label: “In addition to his photography, film work and poetry, he composed a symphony, sonatas, concertos, film scores, and wrote novels, instructional photography manuals, essays [...]
