By Steven Kowalski, Ph.D.
Author, Creative Together: Sparking Innovation in the New World of Work
President and Founder, Creative LicenseTM Consulting Services
Now that you’ve completed reading Creative Together: Sparking Innovation in the New World of Work, take some time to reflect on how your journey through these pages has shaped the story of who you are as a creator and changed how you create together with others.
A Quick Review:
In Creative Together, we embarked on a journey toward a more fulfilling and proactive expression of your creativity. Across three adventure, we explored, stage by stage, how to activate your creative potential and use it to create together.
• Adventure One started the inner work required to overcome Creativity Disruption Disorder (CDD). By exploring your relationship with your creativity and challenging the old story, you developed a strong inner core. This is the foundation for a fuller expression of creativity in your work and life. It is essential as the first step on your path toward more effective co-creation. You learned to greet the unknown with passion, ignite your creative potential, and flex your Superpowers to navigate the tests that show up on creative quests.
• Adventure Two is where you began to realize the benefits of your inner work. You took your gift out in the world and learned to co-create more effectively within social systems. You let go of the illusion that you can create alone and embraced a core truth: your gift of creativity must be shared. True strength, especially amid upheaval and uncertainty, comes from creating together. You learned to thrive in co-creation, experiment in the Swamp, and dare to dream big as you brought conscious creativity to collective pursuits.
• Adventure Three remains your springboard to living the principles of conscious co-creation every day and building a lifelong practice of proactive creative accountability.
Time for Reflection:
Now, pause and reflect on how your experiences and insights with the book—and the impact it has had on your work and in the world—has changed the landscape of your life. I invite you to take time with each question, and use different methods (like journaling, drawing, using movement, etc.) to capture your reflections.
• How have these Adventures shaped the landscape and conditions of your life?
• What’s different about how you interact with colleagues in work arenas as well as with friends and family in your community?
• Are you sharing your ideas more generously? If so, how does that show up? If not, what is getting in your way?
• Consider a time when you improvised if things didn’t go as expected or when you reframed a setback as a new opportunity. What did you do that made a difference?
• What evidence suggests you are listening with an ear that is more attuned to possibility—or exploring constraints more proactively?
• In what ways are you letting go of control in service to moving things forward?
• When you become aware of judgment, what works best to reframe the Inner Critic or the Critic in the room?
• How are you using curiosity, mindfulness, and humor to get off the Drama Triangle?
• What has been the most successful practice in your Practice Plan to adapt your Style? What have you tried that didn’t really work out?
• What works best to join with people and support their ideas even though they may be different than yours?
• Are you helping others flourish and lean into their potential—and catching them when they falter? What are you doing to become catalysts for each other?
• What helps you connect with people’s humanity as they cross inner Swamps? As you cross Swamps together?
• Do you feel a renewed sense of compassion for yourself and for others as we all collectively struggle to free ourselves from the muck and quicksand? How has that changed the way you create together?
• What evidence might suggest that you are trusting your creativity and ‘enjoying the ride’?
Keep Going!
Join our growing movement of people like you—learning to thrive in co-creation, elevating our impact, and daring to dream big. Go to creativetogetherbook.com to share your story and join in!
© 2021 Steven Kowalski for Creative License Consulting™. All rights reserved.
