I am a huge comic book nerd. I proudly say that I was into Marvel Comics before it was cool. How the creators of a comic book can convey so much information, meaning, and yes, emotion into a few pages with very few words truly makes that medium an art.
Ok, enough of me trying to justify my love of comics. So if I am not going to justify it anymore, let me explore it. If not in every issue then in every story line there is the scene. For me, it is not about the final battle any more than it is about having a good idea. It is about the moment before the good idea and the moment before the final battle.
Even if you don’t read comic books, I bet you have seen a scene in a movie or you have envisioned a scene in a book you are reading. It is the moment when the hero arrives. It is the moment where the hero who was beaten or betrayed picks himself up, sets his jaw, and is ready to kick some butt. Maybe you’re thinking of a scene right now. In the Marvel world, it is when, in Infinity War, Thor arrives in the battle and screams bring me Thanos. LINK (if you don’t know it is because in their first match up Thor was unprepared and lost to Thanos) Or during End Game, when Captain America picks up the…. Well, I wont spoil it for you. Or, just as good when Wanda simply says, “you will.” Link – scroll to 41 seconds.
Or, just think of any Rocky training montage. The anticipation of a goal achieved through hard work, torturous hard work, that is what is so exciting about climatic scenes in comic books and other epic stories.
Notice though that all of those things happen to be in the physical realm. Bench presses, guns, super powers, and even magical hammers are all things that we can touch. Ideas and creativity are not.
I would like to get that moment. That moment when frisson happens. Frission is the fancy word when chills of awesomeness pop up on our skin. That moment when we feel amped up, prepared, psyched, and ready to go. But I want to get to that moment mentally and cognitively.
That’s our first sophism of this episode/blog. Can you imagine being that psyched up over a thought?
As old and supposedly educated and sophisticated as I am, I still occasionally watch motivational videos on YouTube. You know the ones. A series of athletic training scenes interspersed with memes of spoken lines about hard work with inspirational music in the background. I gotta admit. I love ‘em.
So why aren’t there any motivational videos for cognitive hard work? Are there? Have you looked? Why not? There is a sophism or two in that line of questioning.
Well, I did. The pickings are slim on YouTube. I’m not saying there aren’t any videos. Some do exist. The top one showed 26 thousand views. That’s a lot. But compared the the ones for physical training, that many views is paltry.
I did see a few videos that were made to help people with over-thinking. But…that is kinda the exact opposite of what we want to do with The Creativity Algorithm. I know, I know, overthinking is a popular term for ruminative thinking and catastrophizing. It is an automatic, negative spiral where people get caught focusing on what they think will be a bad likely outcome. Then their mind takes that thought and finds what they think will be the bad result of that outcome and so on.
Like I said, we are trying to do the exact opposite. We want a positive spiral where one good potential outcome leads to another. See post/episode, 61 “ A Wrinkle in Time.” However, before I end this paragraph, let me say that a purposeful, positive spiral isn’t the end goal. We want to make that positive spiral automatic. We want to practice alpha state ideation so often, that it becomes automatic and ideas arrive like best friends constantly texting you warm, funny messages.
Ok, back to a cognitive/mental/creative motivational video. Do you think the rarity of such a thing is because we simply can’t get footage? I mean, how do you set up a video shoot to watch someone sit, relax, and ideate? As an aside, a goal I have is to run a study where I can have participants who frequently have good ideas, do so in an fMRI machine. Unlike an MRI machine that takes a snapshot of a brain, an fMRI machine records blood flow in the brain as a person is thinking. While it can’t measure thoughts, it can record video images of which parts of the brain are most active right before a good idea arrives from the subconscious.
There are studies that have participants try to be creative inside an fMRI tube. But, trying to be creative and actually having a good idea arrive are two different things. It would be like lying in an fMRI machine waiting for Deja vu to happen. Here is another sophism for you. If you think that you can practice the precursors to having a good idea more often, do you think you or anyone can practice the precursors to having Deju vu? Would there be an advantage to having that feeling more often?
Ok, stop getting me off track. Back to a cognitive/mental/creative motivational video, be the director. Be the factory. Be the set designer. What would your video production look like? Would you imagine a set like we did in episode/post 38 and 39, Control Room where you are operating your unconscious like you operate a piece of machinery? How about you are a conductor of a large orchestra where you need to coordinate the many parts of your mind to come together to produce something artful? You can see that this is the next sophism of this week. Imagine a motivational video for creativity.
Would you borrow inspiration from physical motivation videos? What would be your background music? An amazing crescendo to herald the arrival of the idea? For right now, let’s go with that. Let’s use the common idea of the hero stepping onto the battlefield just at the right time. Maybe the ‘bad guy’ that is the problem you are struggling with does a doubting double take when it sees the hero he thought was defeated. In every movie/book/story that has such a scene, the reader or audience knows it is going to be OK.
And you know what, it is. It is going to be OK because a good idea, like all good, prepared, heroes will arrive just at the right time. Notice I said prepared. Remember, we need to train, we need to work at this. Muscles, fighting skills, or whatever helps the hero overcome, don’t come without hard, sweaty work. Neither does mental improvement that invites good ideas.
Take Away: Think of your favorite scene in a movie. If it is a romance, I bet it is the scene when they finally come together. But notice that there was angst and troubles before that. It is only when they quieted themselves, allowed their conscious mind to take a break, and let their subconscious feelings take over that the connection could occur. So, our takeaway is to ‘habit stack’ again (Clear, 2018). Link this week’s takeaway to something you know you are going to do, like plug in your phone. When you do that, sit for 10 minutes, get into an alpha state, and plan your mental motivational video.
Spreading the Thoughts: Ask a coworker whether good ideas slip into the mind or arrive like a hero? If they are puzzled or even curious, tell them about this episode/post.
Next Post: Mowing the Lawn
For more information on how to help yourself and people in your organization learn how to access solutions more regularly, please go to:
Website: joeswope-publicspeaker.com
Youtube: youtube.com/@joeswope-publicspeaker
Podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/joe-swope
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/joe-swope-speaker
References
Beaty, R. E., & Kenett, Y. N. (2023, March). Associative Thinking At The Core of Creativity. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 10(10).
Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones. Penguin Publishing Group.
The Creativity Algorithm 
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