Adult learning

Creative Slump? Try Something, Anything New

/ Susan Hendrich / 3 Comments

Creative Slump? Try Something, Anything New

The Slump

As Spring 2010 settled in, I found myself in a creative rut. Not that I wasn’t coming up with some pretty good instructional design solutions. I just didn’t have the sparkly “kick” in my design step.

My first instinct in considering how to clear the innovation fog was to focus on learning something new about instructional design. “Surely there is some new technique or method out there that will inspire me back into my creative groove,” I told myself. Four hours of semi-conscious web surfing for articles on social networking, blogging, graphic design, and adult learning later, I was in no better creative place than when I first started this aimless journey.

“A good night’s sleep will do the trick,” I murmured to myself in lieu of clicking the Facebook link one last time before throwing the creative towel. Another half hour passed, and while I now was up to speed on my Facebook friends’ opinions on skirt lengths, parasailing, potty training, and bar hopping, I was no closer to sleep than to a creative revelation.

Defeated, I dragged myself to bed.

The Surge

Disarmed of my intellectual shortcomings by the start of my semi-conscious snooze, it came to me…

“Cake Pops!”

No, this was not some animated .gif I would create for a PowerPoint presentation. Nor was it a racy idea for an attention grabber at the beginning of a module. I had realized that my creative sparkle could be restored through an age-old domestic act. Baking.

I recalled seeing some Martha Stewart-y web article on “Cake Pops,” which showed fun bite-sized cake creatures perched firmly on a lollipop stick. “I’ll try it! Should be a piece of cake,” I chuckled to no one in particular, mildly amused by the metaphoric ease of my belief that the creation of these mini-masterpieces could be mastered in a single shot.

So, 67 dollars and one maddening pre-Easter Michael’s trip later, I had everything I needed to make cake pops. Or at least that’s what the “easy cake pop instructions” recipe at Bakerella.com promised. What then ensued can only be described as a tortuous 12 hours of mixing, scraping, baking, shaping, smooshing, poking, and re-attaching nightmare. I kind of loved it, even though at one point I threw an unfrosted cake ball (a pre-cake pop iteration) against my refrigerator in disgust.

My first cake pops were disasterously, unmanageably bad. Think of ABC gum smashed under an old shoe, then jammed with two jelly beans and told to stand up straight and look presentable. Yuck.

Two batches later, the sugared semi-orbs actually started to look like they were intended to look – bunnies and chicks. I was getting my groove now. The bunnies were pink with googly eyes and the beaks of the chicks looked as cute as they did real. Almost unnoticeably, I began putting my own twist on the not-nearly-as-easy-as-they-promised recipe instructions.

Here’s a view of the final products:

Hendrich's Cake Pops

After the final bunny was built and the last chick was cast, I was both mentally exhausted and creatively invigorated. After saran wrapping the last of the munchable art, I flopped into bed and was asleep in seconds.

Getting out of my comfort zone for those 12 hours initiated a creative flow over the next week at work that shocked me. I was in the groove, coming up with innovative and simpler ways of training my customers. But what perhaps is even more exciting is the fact that I had a renewed verve for life in general. An extra spring in my step. And an almost constant feeling that I was just about to conjure another cool idea. Not because I’d attended a webinar in my field of study. Not because I’d read a book to enhance my expertise. But because I tried something utterly new.

Moral of the story: Getting out of my comfort zone and trying something new initiated a creative flow in all areas of my life, both personal and professional. The simple (okay, not exactly simple) act of learning to do something I had never done before restored my curiosity, my creative inspiration, and even my confidence. And the learning was not in my area of expertise. In fact, prior to that day, I would not call myself a baker of any kind.

 Perhaps the old saying is true…

You can create your cake and eat it, too.

Shake it off and step up

/ Susan Hendrich / Leave a comment

Shake it off and step up 

Below is one of my favorite stories with the simplest of messages. Thank you Joseph Sica for this elegant lesson…

Once upon a time there was a farmer who had an old mule. The mule fell into a deep dry well and began to cry loudly. Hearing his mule cry, the farmer came over and assessed the situation. The well was deep and the mule was heavy. He knew it would be difficult, if not impossible, to lift the animal out.

Because the mule was old and the well was dry, the farmer decided to bury the animal in the well. In this way he could solve two problems: put the old mule out of his misery and have his well filled.

He called upon his neighbors to help him and they agreed to help. To work they went. Shovel full of dirt after shovel full of dirt began to fall on the mule’s back. He became hysterical. Then all of a sudden an idea came to the mule. Each time they would throw a shovel full of dirt on his back he could shake it off and step up. Shovel full after shovel full, the mule would shake it off and step up. Now exhausted and dirty, but quite alive, the mule stepped over the top of the well and walked through the crowd.

A great attitude. A great way to approach life. Shake it off and step up. Too often we hold on to what has happened to us.

We hold on to it for a week, a month, even years. We cannot shake it loose from our memory. It eats away at us and steals our joy, happiness and peace of mind. The past hurt can create feelings of bitterness, resentment, anger and revenge.

We keep allowing these emotions to be thrown on our backs and if we do nothing, we will be buried deep in the well. Walls will be built in our relationships. We will avoid each other and the cold war begins.

 But, we have a choice: keep it inside and embrace the hurt or shake it off and step up. Give it a try. Shake it off and step up. Words that have been said or actions that have been done, shake it off and step up. Let it go. Whatever it is: a rude comment, a past mistake, being ignored, we can stew over it all week. It occupies us all the time.

Too often we nurse hurts, we keep them alive inside and go over them time and time again; not only stewing from them, but now chewing them over and over until it gets us sick. Too often we rehearse hurts, tell everyone what has happened to us.

The cure is to accept what has happened, try to make sense out of it, learn from it, then shake it off and step up. When you let it go you feel free and you are no longer buried in the well. Once you are on your feet again you can take some action. You decide where you want to grow in life, the direction you want your life to take. You decide whether you will allow the hurt to make you a bitter or a better person. Learn from it. Emerge stronger.

THAT’S LIFE! If we face our problems and respond to them positively, and refuse to give in to panic, bitterness, or self-pity…The adversities that come along to bury us usually have within them the potential to benefit and bless us.

Training goes organic

/ Susan Hendrich / 1 Comment

Virtual Whiteboarding

Lately you’ve probably seen an increase in the use of hand-drawn “white boarding” in media and learning spots. Think about the long-haired UPS white board guy…   

…or the ever-endearing “Simon’s Cat” series on YouTube…

Now it’s your turn!

LectureScribe is a program for easily producing animated “whiteboard lectures” from a tablet PC or electronic whiteboard. LectureScribe is written by Brian C. Dean, an assistant professor of computer science at Clemson Univeristy.

On Brian’s website, you can find:

  • The LectureScribe program. To install, download this file and place it on any Windows machine. There is no complicated setup required — just double-click the file to start LectureScribe.
  • An example of output of LectureScribe
  • An animated set of instructions on using LectureScribe. This is slightly out of date (for example, image import is now possible, and magnification mode is now turned off by default). A new version will be posted soon.
  • Brian’s article in the Faculty Directions newsletter describing LectureScribe.

LectureScribe

Thinking With Your Heart

/ Susan Hendrich / 1 Comment

Thinking With Your Heart

The sensory path to your brain has three steps, and the brain in your head doesn’t even process your experiences until they have been through the first two steps — from the gut to the heart, and yet another dimension of hidden intelligence.

Neurocardiologists, scientists in an emerging field, have discovered that the brain in the heart contains more than 40,000 nerve cells called baroreceptors. This heart brain is as large as many key areas of the brain in your head. It also has highly sophisticated computational abilities.

With every beat, a new thought or idea is communicated from your heart to the rest of your body. Like your intestinal intuition, this cardio-communication deeply influences how you perceive your world and how you react to it. The heart pumps out speech after speech and every other part of your body is in constant contact with the heart’s demands. These impulses race through the body many times faster than your blood, and it is up to your head brain to try to catch up to them and understand them. The heart also generates many neurochemicals that influence the way we act. One such chemical, atrial peptide, is a primary force in your motivation and commitment to your goals. As we discovered earlier, we need to believe in order to achieve. Well, the heart has more to do with our sense of believing than any other brain we have.

The Heart’s Sense

The brain in your heart also keeps searching for new opportunities to grow or learn, and cross references its interpretations of what those around you are feeling with its own inner state of values and passions. When people tell you to go for your dreams, no matter how far fetched those dreams may seem, people usually say something like, “Follow your heart.” There is now scientific evidence to support the idea that the heart has a dedicated sensory system perfectly calibrated to sniffing out innovative and creative opportunities.

But that’s not all: the heart’s electromagnetic field is by far the most powerful produced by the body. In fact, it is approximately 5,000 times more powerful than the field produced by the brain.

This is true of everyone to a certain degree. People ten feet away may sense exactly what you are feeling. They can even do it over the telephone, and it makes no difference what you are saying. Words are fodder for the brain in your head. Your heart will believe the feeling underneath the words. This means that those people who are most in touch with their own feelings, and the feelings of others, may be the most attuned to what’s really happening in life. It’s imperative that you focus your attention on what you can do, and what you can contribute, not what you can’t. This is one of the uncommon yet simple ways we can better draw upon the combined brilliance and potential of all three of our brains, not just one.

There is so much more to your gut and your heart than digestion and circulation. People are not machines, no matter how often personal or work relationships make us feel as though we are. It’s no wonder that when people don’t feel cared about and valued, it’s so hard to put their hearts into their life or work.

Gut feelings: Your second brain

/ Susan Hendrich / 1 Comment

Gut feelings: Your second brain

If you haven’t read Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell, please put it on your “must do” list. Until then, consider the following…

Many of us assume that human intelligence is based solely on the brain we all know about — the one inside the cranium. It is not. Intelligence is distributed throughout the body.

Go With Your Gut

Example: Whenever you have an experience in life it does not go directly to brain one — the brain in the head — to be thought about. The first place it goes is to the neurological networks of the intestinal tract: the brain in the gut.

Every interaction you have creates an initial reaction in your gut well before it ever traverses your synapses to reach your brain. The feeling may come across as “butterflies in your stomach” or a “knot” of fear or excitement. Some people have been trained to process everything intellectually, so those people may not even notice their gut reactions.

That’s a pity, because your gut is just trying to communicate with you. It is looking out for your well-being, just as your brain is, and it’s making decisions and asking questions you may want to find out about. How important is this meeting or this challenge or this person? Is there an opportunity here? Is there a threat? Is my happiness or advancement at risk?

Known as the enteric nervous system, this “second brain” in your gut works on its own but also in conjunction with the brain in your head. Scientists who carefully examine the elaborate systems of nerve cells and neurochemicals found in the intestinal tract now tell us that there are more neurons there than in the entire spinal column — at least 100 million of them. This gives your intestine the ability to help tell your body and mind what it may be best to do or not do.

Listening to Your Alternate Brains

Many people view gut reactions as those that have not been well thought out or rationally examined. Does this make them any less reliable? No, because they are unclouded by clutter of information found in our heads. Rational decisions are often influenced by forces outside of your true self. Reaching the peak of your true potential depends on developing and applying an energizing, authentic level of intelligence and bringing it to everything you do. For this to happen, you must combine the perceptions and impressions of the gut, heart, and mind.

Think of a time when you considered all of the options and ended up listening to your gut. Did it turn out to be the best choice? It always has for me.

So, how will you handle your next big decision?  I say, “go with your gut!”