People are not just frightened, but genuinely fearful of the most amazing things.  Things like the following:

• Anglophobia- Fear of England or English culture.
• Deipnophobia- Fear of dining or dinner conversations.
• Ephebiphobia- Fear of teenagers.
• Hellenologophobia- Fear of Greek terms or complex scientific terminology.
• Metrophobia- Fear of poetry.
• Sinistrophobia- Fear of things to the left or left-handed.
• Zemmiphobia- Fear of the great mole rat.

I’m not making that last one up.  Google it.

Of course there are many, many, many more.  We all know (and possibly even share) some of the more common ones.  Fear of the dark.  Fear of loud noises.  Fear of enclosed spaces.  Fear of spiders.  Fear of clowns.  However, I don’t think we’d necessarily count these as the real biggies, those fears that, if we give any real consideration to, whatsoever, we’ll end up losing sleep over.

You know the ones I’m talking about.

Fear of ridicule.

Fear of pain.

Fear of death.

Fear of insanity.

Fear of insignificance.

You might even share what, up until recently, would have been my answer to this post’s leading question.

Fear of failure.

So, what happened recently that caused this to stop being my greatest fear? Well, I’m glad you asked.

The simple answer is that I read a book, specifically The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (he wrote The Legend of Bagger Vance).  It’s a book about winning your inner creative battles, of which I have many, most of which I seem to lose.  So, this book was helpful, helpful like a root canal or invasive surgery or a back-waxing is helpful.

In one particular chapter aptly entitled “Fear” Pressfield revealed to me the fact that failure was not my greatest fear.  He accomplished this by making me aware of a greater, deeper fear I’ve held for who-knows-how long without even realizing it. After listing out more of our very real, deep-seeded fears than I have here, he wrote the following on pp. 142-143.

These are serious fears.  But they’re not the real fear.  Not the Master Fear, the Mother of all Fears that’s so close to us that even when we verbalize it we don’t believe it.

Fear That We Will Succeed.

That we can access the powers we secretly know we possess.

That we can become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are.

This is the most terrifying prospect a human being can face, because it ejects him at one go (he imagines) from all the tribal inclusions his psyche is wired for and has been for fifty million years.

We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are.  More than our parents/children/teachers think we are.  We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us.  That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity.  We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land.  We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know.  We pass through a membrane.  We become monsters and monstrous.

We know that if we embrace our ideals, we must prove worthy of them.

Pressfield closes out the chapter by asking the simple but loaded question, “Do you believe me?”

Now, if I’m honest, I have to admit that, in the time I’ve been mulling over this, I probably haven’t run it through all of the Biblical and theological filters that I should.  But, in answer to his question, I think I have to say, “Yes.  Yes I do.”

What about you?

This is great for me. I remember as a kid saying to my parents that I wanted to find a job where someone paid me to sit around and come up with ideas. So, as far as I’m concerned, I win and I win big.

In order to develop good ideas we utilize a process called brainstorming. Some think that creatives should just be able to come up with ideas in an instant with no problem, that we never run out of ideas. Those people are wrong. As counterintuitive as it might seem, creatives often thrive in process when in the initial ideating phase of a project. Of course, we’d never admit that. Nor would we probably implement the process ourselves if we had a choice. But that’s another blog post.

Now, We’ve all heard of brainstorming and have probably been a part of a brainstorming process at one point or another. It became really big in business books about fifteen or twenty years ago, and is still used today.

However, not everyone does “brainstorming” the same way. And I guess that’s fine. Far be it from me to tell you the exact right way I think you should do it, (after all, there is no perfect spaghetti sauce; there are only perfect spaghetti sauces), but I’m going to anyway.

Well, not exactly. I don’t necessarily think this is the “right” or “only” way to do this. What I do think, though, is that through all of the brainstorming sessions I’ve been a part of, this is what I have found works best in those circumstances.

So, now, without further ado, let me present my 10 rules/guidelines/tips/strategies/concepts/techniques/methods for how to have an effective brainstorming session.

1. The problem is the question – Brainstorming is basically a technique for problem solving. It shouldn’t be uses if there isn’t a problem to solve. The problem can be big or small but should be made as simple as possible. Begin any brainstorming session with explaining clearly what the problem is. The end of this explaination should be in the form of a question that sums up the problem to be addressed. Something like, “what improvement to frying pans are people crying out for?” or “isn’t there some way settlement on Mars can be made both feasible and affordable?” If you can’t sum up the problem in a simple sentence, break it down into parts that can be.

2. There is no audience; there are only participants – Everyone in attendance at your brainstorming should be encouraged/expected/required to participate. It’s important for the facilitator to make this clear. If someone is dominating the conversation or conversely hiding in their silent shell, it is the responsibility of the meeting’s leader to shut them up or spur them on respectively.

3. Time is your frienemy – When brainstorming you want to allow ample time to come up with as many possible solutions to your problems (ideas) as possible. However, there will come a moment when ideas quickly cease to flow and participants become sluggish, irritable and easily distracted. There’s no magic time at which this happens. It’s different for every meeting and every group. Sometimes it’s 15 minutes. At other times it’s an hour. I find that it’s usually sometime around 28:47.

4. 2 is better than 1 but 10 isn’t necessarily better than 9 – When planning a brainstorming session it’s okay to not invite every single one of your friends, family members, co-workers, Twitter followers and fellow artists. In fact, you really shouldn’t. Brainstorming can be done on your own, but it’s better with a group simply because of the diversity of ideas that a group brings. However, too many people means that most ideas won’t get heard. Again, there’s not a magic number, but my personal opinion is that when attendance gets in the double digits productivity significantly decreases. A chart of this phenomenon might look like the following:

5. The more the merrier – The whole point of having a brainstorming session is to try to come up with as man ideas as possible. You don’t want to do anything to stifle the flow. The whole idea is that the more ideas you have the more likely you are to stumble upon that one incredible, earth-shattering, game-changing, billion-dollar-making solution you never really knew you were looking for in the first place.

6. Everyone’s a critic; so tell them all to shut up – Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, kills creativity in brainstorming quicker than for just one person to criticize just one idea. Sometimes it’s as simple as a would-be critic making a face or laughing at a particular idea not meant to be funny. If this happens, kick them out. Seriously. And, yes, do it even if it’s your boss. Make sure everyone understands the rules a head of time and then force them to abide by them.

7. “No idea is a bad idea” just isn’t true – It’s a fine slogan, and one to be embraced and utilized as much as possible, but it simply doesn’t hold up. There are bad ideas, lots of bad ideas, and if you’re brainstorming correctly, you’re going to have a lot of them thrown out there. And that’s the way it should be. You just can’t worry about it. Especially with regards to your own ideas. You might know you have a bad idea, but that bad idea might be standing in the way of ten good ideas. Get it out there and move on.

8. Cross-fertilization isn’t as dirty as it sounds – Listen to everyone’s ideas. Build on their ideas. Combine two ideas together to make one super awesome colossal idea. As the Beatles sang, “Come together. Right now.”

9. Think outside the box, literally – Where’s the place you normally have meetings? You know, that room with four walls, a floor and a ceiling? That’s your box, your normal, every-day, used-to-it, uninspiring box. Wanna have a good brainstorming meeting? Go somewhere else.

10. Write it down, all of it – This might sound obvious. If it is, good. There’s going to be a lot of ideas being tossed out. You don’t want to miss any of them. So write them down, every single one, preferably where everyone in the meeting can see them. This can be the responsibility of the person facilitating the meeting or someone else. Your call.

So, there you go. Follow these rules/guidelines/tips/strategies/concepts/techniques/methods and you’ll have an effective brainstorming session every time (or one that is at least more effective than it would have been if you hadn’t followed all of these). Trust me.

So, have fun and remember… process isn’t the enemy of creativity… Big Brother is.