Flexing Mental Muscles to Achieve Creativity

Creativity is a vital skill for success in the future. That why it’s one of the 7Cs that Michael Moe, visionary investment strategist and education advocate with GSV Ventures, says must be part of education for “everyone to participate equally in the future.” Ah, the Virtanza team likes the sound of that!

But wait! You think. Creativity can’t be taught. You’re either creative, or you’re not. Nope.

Creativity is a learned skill that can be enhanced with focus and attention. You CAN develop the ability to plan a uniquely fantastic event, redecorate a room on a shoestring budget, or conceive and create a compelling presentation.

Where does creativity come from? Let’s skip the long explanation about how your brain works and get to how creativity factors into education, and then how you use it in Real Life.

There is a universally accepted theory of how learning should be structured called Bloom’s Taxonomy, which was revised in 2001 as a Taxonomy for Teaching, Learning and Assessment. Very simply, it’s a continuum that describes the thinking processes involved in performing activities that get more difficult as they progress. It starts with “Remembering” as the most basic (like learning your spelling words). Here’s the whole list, from most basic to most complex:

1. Remember

2. Understand

3. Apply

4. Analyze

5. Evaluate

6. Create

For example, a person who works as a cashier is “applying” a learned skill. A person who develops a multimedia presentation to sell a multi-million-dollar technology solution is “creating.”

Being creative doesn’t mean you have to be an artist. It means you exercise your mental muscle and help it grow stronger and stronger by working on, and mastering, harder and harder things.

You must remember and understand new information on a topic. You must practice applying this knowledge. You must analyze other facts and inputs related to the topic, evaluate how they compare with each other, and make connections between them.

Now you are prepared to develop or create. Maybe not a work of art. But how about:

• A marketing plan to help your small business succeed.

• A cookbook to raise $2800 for your child’s school.

• A detailed plan to move to a larger house in four days without spending more than your budget.

That’s Real Life.

Throughout your schooling you heard teachers tell you that you had to learn things “to teach you how to think.” Credit Bloom’s Taxonomy for that. Professional sales education from Virtanza through partner universities and colleges ticks the boxes from remembering a basic selling process to developing a proposal to sell a product.  It’s an opportunity to take all that brain muscle and put it to work creating – AND SELLING! – a better future. Learn more about Virtanza’s sales programs by visiting www.virtanza.com.