Now For Something Completely Different

Introduction excerpt from The Power of Thinking Differently by Javy W. Galindo

From section entitled “Now For Something Completely Different” (updated 1/18/09 from draft IIII)

Do you remember how creative you were as a child?

As wide-eyed children the world was still new and we were experts at using our imaginations to fill in the blanks of our knowledge. We played make-believe, pretend, and we laughed at the most ridiculous things. Maybe you had fun with dolls, toy soldiers, and rocks in the backyard, or maybe you played treasure hunt with the neighbors.

As children we exercised our creative faculties to explore all sorts of fascinating ideas. Perhaps you conjured up bizarre stories, made interesting music that bothered the neighbors, or created deformed ashtrays out of clay. Or maybe you were a clever entrepreneur selling street side lemonade. I still remember holding a raffle when I was just 10 years old — at my aunt’s wedding. What crazy 10-year-old tries to profit from their aunt’s wedding?

Actually, as children, we always had a tendency to do things differently than adults — some of it good, some of it not so good. Nevertheless, the world was always full of possibilities. The world was enchanted and mysterious because our understanding was limited.

But then, at some point in our lives, we began to think that we actually knew the world. Maybe we didn’t say it out loud, but we began to behave as if we no longer needed our imaginations to fill in the blanks. In fact, we did the opposite. We neglected our creative faculties in order to learn the way things are, so that we could do things the way they are supposed to be done.

The world of possibilities became the world of the impossible. Rather than use our imagination to explore ideas, we began to use some form of rationality to avoid mistakes and failures by limiting our exploration. Consequently, the world became less mysterious. It became un-enchanted.

But the truth is that the two are not mutually exclusive. The truth is, the world requires that we use both our creativity and common sense if we want to be better employees, entrepreneurs, policy makers, parents, citizens, friends, and neighbors. In order to learn, grow, improve, and solve problems, we need to be able to think differently. Doing things the way they are supposed to be done doesn’t always cut it.

This was my realization. This was the creative insight that motivated me to start making music again, to write again, and to start a company with some wonderfully eccentric friends. And once my creative juices were flowing again I made an even greater change. I decided, at least temporarily, to suspend my ten-year engineering career in order to study creativity. It seemed like an odd thing to do, but by definition creativity isn’t about being normal. It’s about being different.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary definition: Creativity is “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.”

Many of us want to make positive change in our lives and we often spend day after day hitting our heads against the wall in the effort. Maybe you are the head of state and are trying to solve the Middle East crisis, but get frustrated and upset when you try to implement your solution and it fails. On a slightly smaller scale, maybe you crave to complete a project like a painting, choreographing a dance routine, writing a new song, stopping gang violence, discovering possible cures for diseases, buying a house, or authoring a book, and you find yourself flooded with negative thoughts and energies because you have yet to find success. Or perhaps you desire to be somewhere else in your life, but have been seemingly stuck in the mud.

Whatever your endeavor is, if you simply want to find a new way to do whatever it is you’re doing, this book holds the results of my findings on how to do that. It is a book about how to get beyond the limitations of common sense in order to think creatively.

As a professional in the corporate world I have been a part of many “creative thinking” workshops, covering everything from Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats to Six Sigma brainstorming. As an artist I’ve performed and taught music, written fiction, non-fiction, sketch comedy, and participated in comedy improvisation. The funny thing is I could never marry what I was being taught in a corporate seminar with what I was doing as a creative human being outside of it. And if I’m being honest, the corporate seminar stuff seemed way too sterile and hokey to be really interesting. That’s too bad, because thinking back on it now, a lot of the material was actually quite useful. It just needed to be taught in the right context.

By looking at the brain and how human beings think, I hope to put common sense and thinking differently in a context that can help us generate new ideas, perspectives, and solutions to problems. Maybe more importantly, by investigating how the brain works in this regard, I’ve stumbled upon some enlightening implications on how to live life in ways that will make us more conscious of creative possibilities in all aspects of our lives. I tried to use a wide spectrum and refer to the creative process in terms of the individual struggling to find a new way to cook chicken soup, all the way to the world leader trying to refine government policy. It’s not quite the kitchen sink, but it’s close. I also go somewhat deep in reflecting on the psychology and neuroscience of the creative process. But don’t worry; though it’s deep enough to get your feet wet, it’s shallow enough to keep your hair dry.


(Wakefield, 1996, p 6-7)

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