Some time ago, I had a challenge: to tell my life story in 15 words. Ok, I cheated using pictures and quotes that represented the 15 words, but I upheld the spirit of the challenge.If you’re curious on the results, visit Zen and the art of photographic story telling (available in both English and Spanish).

Today, I decided to try again to tell a personal story in exactly 15 words. The results are in the image below.

How about you? Can you tell a personal story in exactly 15 words? Give it a shot and share it with us in the comments below.

Image: Weight Lifting by mjzitek

Impossible dreams

Do you think a professional weight lifter could lift 1,000 pounds? What about you? Do you tink you can lift 1,000 pounds? If you think the answer is no, think again.

Still think you can’t? Take a look at this video from one of my favourite characters, Jack Lalane, and you will find just how easy it would be for you to do it (link). Sure, you may say that doing it that way is cheating (haven’t seen the video yet? You really ought to see it! Go and take a look – we will wait for you), but what jack does has nothing to do with cheating..

The power of Lateral Thinking

No, what Jack was talking about has everything to do with creative thinking. Not like those “creative accounting” tricks in the arsenal of rogue advisors that corrupt senior executives at banks & multinationals; rather, the kind of creative thinking that Edward de Bono encourages in his books (link) . Lateral thinking, creative problem-solving, and intuitive reason are some of the names given to the thought process that abolishes boundaries for a few minutes as a mechanism to find unusual ways to solve problems. Every time we read, hear, or think about a problem, our mind immediately makes assumptions and places constraints on the way to approach the problem.

Think about it; without these pre-defined filters, the number of ridiculous possibilities we would entertain would quickly lead to analysis-by-paralysis. Yet this useful characteristic of our mind is our own enemy when it comes to increasing our problem-solving repertoire. Developing the ability to look at our own reality from a different perspective on a regular basis becomes a critical tool in our personal development arsenal. Without it,we become slaves to our own routines and frames-of-mind. We become unconsciously incompetent on creative problem-solving.

Diversity of perspectives: the path to creativity

In a way, that is why many modern corporations have espoused diversity as a desired trait of their workforce. Some may think it only has to do with legal requirements to prove that they do not discriminate on the basis of sex, colour, race, or religion. But for smart companies it is the type of acknowledgement proving that a diverse work-force with a variety of life- and world-views will be more likely to look at business problems from different and sometimes unusual angles; and in doing so, provide those in management & leadership with great insights into new opportunities.

So do yourself a favour, and develop your creative thinking muscles; exercise insanity for short periods of time, and see the type of astonishing solutions your brain can come up with. I promise you will at the very least enjoy the process, and at best will find great and effortless ways to solve your current problems.

Image from ecosmartfire.com

Winter is truly here, bringing with it childhood memories of nights by the fireplace, cooking steak on a grill over the open fire.

Who would light an old-fashioned coal or wood fireplace in these days of global warming, and still have a clean conscience? Lucky for us all, a creative Australian inventor has designed some beautiful, environmentally friendly flue-less chimneys. They will even fit on an apartment, and will warm up a 50-60 square meter room.

Anyone wants to give me one for my place?