On my way back from Tucson Gem and Jewelry show in Arizona, I picked up a small book at the airport called 201cHow Successful People Think201d by John C. Maxwell.00a0 Little did I know at that moment of purchase that Mr. Maxwell is an internationally recognized leadership expert, speaker and author who has sold over l6 million books. His biography is a 201cWho2019s Who201d and he is 1 of only 25 authors and artists00a0 named to Amazon. com2019s 10^thAnniversary Hall of Fame. Three of his books, the 201c21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Developing the Leader Within You and The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader 201d have each sold over a million copies.

I settled down into my seat on the plane hoping to find the answers to success, what I found was the key to thinking and the importance of creativity and focus for success.

00a000a0The book presents many steps to becoming successful, but focused thinking and nurturing the creative mind was catamount. 00a0How do achievers like Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, Martin Luther King, George Lucas, Donald Trump, think?

I liked Trump2019s advice on thinking,00a0201cWe all have to think, so why not think big.201d

00a0Good thinking can do many things for you: generate revenue, solve problems, and create opportunities. It can take you to a whole new level 2013 personally and professionally.

Author Napoleon Hill observed,201cMore gold has been mined from the thoughts of man than has ever been taken from the earth.201d

00a0Good thinkers always prime the pump of ideas. They always look for things to get the thinking process started, because what you put in always impacts what comes out.

Read books, review trade magazines, listen to tapes and spend time with good thinkers. And when something intrigues you 2013 whether it2019s someone else2019s idea or the seed of an idea that you2019ve come up with yourself 2013 keep it in front of you.

Put it in writing and keep it somewhere in your favorite thinking place to stimulate your thinking.

00a0What I discovered in reading this last paragraph is that my passed success00a0 in my bridal design business and at present in creating the Grains of Glass web site, were the same steps offered for success in this book. I was way ahead of myself.

00a0

00a0So what are the characteristics of Creative Thinking?

00a0Creative thinkers value ideas. Creativity is about having ideas 2013lots of them. You will have ideas only if you value ideas.

Annette Moser-Wellman, author of 201cThe Five Faces of Genius,201d states, 201cHighly creative people are dedicated to ideas. They don2019t rely on their talent alone; they rely on their discipline. Their imagination is like a second skin. They know how to manipulate it to its fullest.201d00a0

Creative thinkers explore options and this helps to stimulate the imagination and we know imagination is crucial to creativity. Options provide the key to finding the best answer 2013 not the ONLY answer. They create back up plans that provide them with alternatives.

00a0Creative thinkers don2019t feel the need to stamp out uncertainty. They see all kinds of inconsistencies and gaps in life, and they often take delight in exploring those gaps 2013 or in using their imagination to fill them.

Writer H.L Mencken stated,00a0201cIt2019s the dull man who is always00a0sure, and the sure man who is always dull.201d

00a0Creative thinkers celebrate the offbeat, go against the grain and often explore off the beaten path. To foster creativity in yourself or others, be willing to tolerate a little oddness. 00a0

According to long time president of Yale University, Kingman Brewster,00a0201cThere is a correlation between the creative and the screwball. So we must suffer the screwball gladly.201d

00a0Creative thinkers connect the unconnected. Because creativity utilizes the ideas of others there is great value in being able to connect one idea to another, especially to seemingly unrelated ideas.

00a0Creative thinkers don2019t fear failure. Creativity demands the ability to be unafraid of failure because Creativity = Failure.

Charles Frankel asserts that00a0201canxiety201d is the essential condition of intellectual and artistic creation.201d Creativity requires a willingness to look stupid."

It means going out on a limb and knowing that the limb often breaks. Creative people know these things and yet still keep searching for new ideas. They don2019t let the ideas that don2019t work prevent them from coming up with more ideas that do work.

00a0Creativity is being able to see what everybody else has seen and think what nobody else has thought so that you can do what nobody else has done.

Sometimes creative thinking lies along the lines of invention, where you break new ground. Other times it moves along the lines of innovation, which helps you to do old things in a new way. Either way, it2019s about seeing the world through sufficiently new eyes so that new solutions appear. That always adds value.

00a0If you cultivate creative thinking in an environment that nurtures creativity, there is no telling what kind of ideas you can come up with.

As poet May Angelou commented, 201cYou can2019t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. Sadly, too often creativity is smothered rather than nurtured. There has to be a climate in which new ways of thinking, perceiving, questioning are encouraged.201d

00a0Creative thinking is HARD WORK, but creative thinking compounds given enough time and focus.

00a0Creativity is intelligence having fun. People admire intelligence and they are always attracted to fun 2013 if anyone could be said to have fun with his intelligence, it was Leonardo d Vinci.

The diversity of his ideas and expertise staggers the mind. He was a painter, architect, sculptor, anatomist, musician, inventor and engineer. The term00a0Renaissance man00a0was coined because of him. Just as people were drawn to Da Vinci and his ideas during the Renaissance, they are drawn to creative people today.

00a0How do you discover the joy of creative thinking?

00a0Start by removing the following creativity killer phrases that may arise inside your head, or handed out by others.........

00a0...I2019m not a creative person 2013 you must follow the rules 2013 don2019t ask questions 2013 It2019s too much work 2013 its never been done 2013 it2019s not practical - be serious 2013 don2019t be different 2018 stay within the lines00a0 - there is only one way 2013 that2019s not logical 2013 think of your image 2013 we can2019t afford to make a mistake 2013 play is frivolous, we have always done it this way2026.

00a0If you think you have a great idea, don2019t let anyone talk you out of it even if it sounds foolish. Don2019t let yourself or anyone else subject you to creativity killers. After all, you can2019t do something new and exciting if you force yourself to stay in the same old rut.

Don2019t just work harder at the same old thing. Make a change!

00a0To sum it up, if you2019re not as creative as you would like to be, you can change your way of thinking. Creative thinking isn2019t necessarily original thinking. Most often, creative thinking is a composite of other thoughts discovered along the way.

Even the great artists, whom we consider highly original, learned from their masters, modeled their work on that of others, and brought together a host of ideas and styles to create their own work. Study art and you will see threads that run through the work of all artists and artistic movements, connecting them to other artists who went before them.

Nothing expands possibilities like unleashed thinking

-William Arthur Ward