Protecting Your Creative Streaks From Insecurities Of Others

Some people are more creative than others. This intimidates triggering insecurities of others. Blowback occurs. Thus, protecting your creative streaks becomes important.

Creative People Intimidating Others

Creative ideas are outliers. They’re outnumbered, outgunned from the go. They’re spontaneous not always fitting in some process or system. In short, they’re disruptive. Creative ideas and change run together. So, they intimidate.

Thus, protecting your creative streaks means steeling yourself for blowback. When it happens, deal with it. Don’t let it crush you. Research the personal history of many musicians, actors and artists. Bullying from others links most of them. It’s the story too of those not in the limelight.

Defensive Strategies Protecting Your Creative Streaks

Now, protecting your creative streaks begins with spotting moves by others to make you think like they do. Most times it’s not conscious on their part. Still, this requires defense.

Keep in mind that most people who are not that creative don’t believe you can be. They’ll rely on systems, processes and groups. Their research shows creative ideas usually don’t work well. So, they need such formal methods. That research though included people who weren’t that creative.

In addition to systems, the uncreative will assert the will of the majority – team intelligence. “Most people think this is best.” Remember, “most” means the bell curve’s middle, not its creative outliers. Team intelligence only works under very specific conditions.

Defending means outwardly going along but not thinking and intuiting the way others tell you with their processes, systems and rules. Do what works for you. Offensively, it means patience, striking with your ideas when the time is right.

In short, defense means not thinking and intuiting the way they do. Do what’s best for you. Outwardly, go along. Inwardly, prepare for the right time.

Four Offensive Strategies Protecting Your Creative Streaks

When the right time comes, four basic offensive strategies exist for protecting your creative streaks:

1. Find supporting data and make them look good
2. Present idea as similar to an old idea, just better
3. Latch on to someone else’s idea, making it better
4. Make the most of crises and problems

Data persuade. Defense means collecting data and arguments to support your idea. Offense means making them look good and fitting the time at hand.

Tanks were just cavalry on wheels. Email was just faster snail mail. Make your idea bettering an old idea. It looks less radical, less intimidating.

Creative ideas are outnumbered at the gun. Often the second person to endorse an idea starts to move it. Be that second person. Boost those ideas that could use yours. Latch onto them. Make them better.

If you’re right, wait. Groupthink will fail. Seize on crises and problems. Defensively, you’ve prepped your idea. While events stymie others, you’re set. Patton was already preparing for the Germans surprise attack (Battle Of The Bulge) when others thought it a pipe dream.

In the end, protecting your creative streaks from the insecurities of others means defending by outwardly going along but inwardly preparing. Don’t think and intuit the way others tell you. Do what works for you. Offensively, it means patience. Then, strike when your time comes. It will. Just be creative and it will always appear.