Want To Know How You Lost Your Creativity And Sense Of Adventure

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers Want to know how you lost your creativity and sense of adventure? In 2013, the lawyers who are creative will be of the greatest value to clients. Those lawyers will see what others miss. Yet, most of us lost our creativity and sense of adventure long ago. A couple of years ago I wrote about getting it back in: How You Can Become a More Innovative and Creative Lawyer. More recently, I shared  Brittaney Schmidt’s story in my blog:  Can I encourage you to just “jump in”?  Let’s go back to how you and I lost it. As you know from a previous blog, I have recently enjoyed looking at old family photos. When looking at our photos of our daughter Jill, I remembered how creative she was when she was young. For example, she played school with my grandmother who was essentially blind at the time. Jill was the teacher and Mommer, as we all called her, was the student who never measured up. Take a look at these two photos of Jill. You can see she is in a very creative mood in both photos. I guarantee your parents have similar photos of you and if you have children, you likely have similar photos of them. When you were young, you were incredibly creative. You were open and not afraid. Why and how did you lose it and how can you get it back? I found this St. Louis Dispatch article:  Why children lose their creativity. Harry Chapin wrote and sang a song titled: Flowers are Red. Here is a video and here are the lyrics: (Spoken)Your son marches to the beat of a different drummer, comma. (Spoken)But don’t worry, (Spoken)We’ll have him joining the parade by the end of the term The little boy went first day of school He got some crayons and started to draw He put colors all over the paper For colors was what he saw And the teacher said.. What you doin’ young man I’m paintin’ flowers he said She said… It’s not the time for art young man And anyway flowers are green and red There’s a time for everything young man And a way it should be done You’ve got to show concern for everyone else For you’re not the only one And she said… Flowers are red young man Green leaves are green There’s no need to see flowers any other way Than they way they always have been seen But the little boy said… There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flower and I see every one Well the teacher said.. You’re sassy There’s ways that things should be And you’ll paint flowers the way they are So repeat after me….. And she said… Flowers are red young man Green leaves are green There’s no need to see flowers any other way Than they way they always have been seen Green leaves are green There’s no need to see flowers any other way Than the way they always have been seen But the little boy said… There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flower and I see every one The teacher put him in a corner She said.. It’s for your own good.. And you won’t come out ’til you get it right And all responding like you should Well finally he got lonely Frightened thoughts filled his head And he went up to the teacher And this is what he said.. and he said Flowers are red, green leaves are green There’s no need to see flowers any other way Than the way they always have been seen Time went by like it always does And they moved to another town And the little boy went to another school And this is what he found The teacher there was smilin’ She said…Painting should be fun And there are so many colors in a flower So let’s use every one But that little boy painted flowers In neat rows of green and red And when the teacher asked him why This is what he said.. and he said Flowers are red, green leaves are green There’s no need to see flowers any other way Than the way they always have been seen. But there still must be a way to have our children say . . . There are so many colors in the rainbow So many colors in the morning sun So many colors in the flower and I see every one I will leave you with this Seth Godin quote: The joy of art is particularly sweet … because it carries with it the threat of rejection, of failure, and of missed connections. It’s precisely the high-wire act of “this might not work” that makes original art worth doing. I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.