Stained Glass Art - I Decided to Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before

Over 30 years ago, I...

• Lived near a Tidewater inlet to the Chesapeake Bay in Seaford, Virginia.
• Was a lieutenant colonel in the Army.
• Ran 50 miles a week training for the Marine Corps Marathon.
• Had two teenage sons.
• Created this unusual stained glass piece.

It was the only stained glass art work I ever created. Today it's displayed in our master bathroom and looks great in the afternoon light.

My ex-wife was the real stained glass artist - not me. She was very accomplished and passionate about her work until the day she concluded that our culture would never value this aspect of art enough to appropriately pay for the hours it took her to create it. She could make ten times as much money cooking french fries at McDonald's. So she got rid of all her equipment and left all that behind her, never again to create anything in stained glass.

She didn't get a job at McDonald's, however. Instead, she went back to college, maintained a 4.0 average, and graduated from the College of William and Mary business school, magna cum laude.

But during the years that she worked as an artist, I sometimes assisted her in the menial set-up work.

Inevitably, I wondered if I should try creating something myself. I knew I would only do it once, so I decided to do something ambitious. I decided on an impressionistic, symbolic approach. This meant that instead of a few dozen glass pieces soldered together, I would have to use hundreds. The project took me four months to complete.

The image represents universal energy, whether on a cosmic scale or an atomic scale.

So over 30 years ago I put on my uniform and performed my military duties, and none of my colleagues knew I had created this unusual piece of stained glass art.

Today, I'm still pleased with the result. And I'm still fascinated by the cosmos.

Each morning while I'm shaving I see this image in the mirror. It reminds me that I have the potential to be creative, an essential inspiration because I'm challenged more than ever to exercise this strength in my work.

It's a testament to what an ordinary guy can do if he dreams big and doesn't give up.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2014. Building Personal Strength .

Your Creative Brain Power - Imagine Your Desired Future

It's usually dark when my alarm goes off, and I get up to prepare to go to the gym. I'm not fully awake until two hours later as I'm showering after my workout. But I have things to do before we go. It's my job to dress for the gym, make coffee and tea for go-cups, take out bird food to the front and back yards, get the newspaper, prepare the gym bags and take them to the car. All this takes half an hour, while my wife gets herself ready to go.

I always reach the car first, and I open the garage door before getting into the car. This turns on an overhead light in the garage. Nice.

Also, the light turns off automatically five minutes later. So sometimes I'm sitting in the car in the darkness sipping my coffee, still waiting. The light turns on again after closing the garage door, and off again five minutes later. Pretty nifty gadget, that garage door opener.

This system was worked out years ago by creative-minded engineers. I wasn't there when it happened, of course, but I imagine something like this conversation took place...

"What if they open the garage door at night? It'll be dark in the garage, and that's not cool."

"Right. Well, it could turn on a light at the same time. No big deal."

"Yeah, that'll work. But wait. Once they get into the car, how will they turn off the light? You don't want the light to stay on until they come back. That could be a long time, wasting electricity."

"Right. That's not good. We could add a light button on the clicker they keep in the car."

"Not bad. But maybe they forget to use it and that's a lot of buttons on a small clicker."

"Okay, so the light turns off automatically."

"After how long?"

"Well, it should stay on until they get into the car. That's what the light's for. And they need light after they close the door so they have light while entering the house."

"So how long? Twenty minutes?"

"Do they need that much time?"

"Not really. How about five minutes?"

"That sounds about right. Let's set up a test system and see what people say."

As I said, something like this conversation. What really took place is not important. What actually happened is that engineers came up against a problem and used their imagination to think of ways to solve it.

Anyone with a normal,healthy brain has the capacity for imagination. Your brain forms images based on sensory inputs. We call these images perceptions. We see. We hear. We feel. It's one of the things your brain can do.

You can also form images based on stored past perceptions. We call these images memories.

Furthermore, you can form images you've never experienced before, by combining stored perceptual memories in new ways. We call this imagination. It works in dreams, too. The combining of old perceptions to make new images happens in the right prefrontal cortex.

Your amazing brain. Some people exercise imagination more often than others. By exercising these neurons extensively, they cause them to grow together into a neural network, resulting in mental habits for imagination. With this practiced ability, a person could get real good at it and make money being creative. Millions of people do.

But even if you aren't a professional artist or imagineer, you can still imagine, just by trying. You may not have extensive imagination habits and you may not make your living being creative, but you can imagine simply by deciding to do it and by making the effort.

Try this. I want you to close your eyes and see an image of Tom Cruise dressed in a yellow outfit sitting in a corner on a stool with a propeller beanie on his head, sticking his tongue out. Go ahead, close your eyes and do it.

See? I knew you could do it. Good for you. It boils down to asking "What if...." Do that and you can visualize something specific you want in the future, even if such a thing has never happened before.

More about your mind's creative powers...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2012. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use image purchased from Fotolia.com)

An Outsider Remembers a Road Less Traveled

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

- Robert Frost

In my life I've often opted for the less traveled road. Sometimes it got me in trouble. Other times it led to insight or innovation. When did this become a pattern for me? I'm not sure. But I have this memory...

Remote Alaskan mountains

It was 1966 and I had just completed my third year at West Point - more a journey of compliance than a "road less traveled by," for sure. Unless you count the times I walked punishment tours on weekends for violating one of the thousands of rules and regulations of that institution. I was a pretty good student, but I had "done time."

That summer I was visiting Alaska for a month while serving as an interim infantry platoon leader. One weekend I drove a car into the mountains. On an impulse, I turned off on an unpaved road, which after several miles ran out at the foot of a treeless mountainside. So I parked the car and went for a walk. But not on a path. And I didn't head for the peak, which is what most people do. Instead, I walked around the circumference. After about an hour, I found myself in a remote region. I looked around and saw nothing but snow-covered mountains and wilderness. It seemed to me extremely unlikely that anyone else would have come this way. In fact, it dawned on me that in this remote part of the planet I was probably the first person ever to stand on this particular piece of ground. The first human ever in 4.5 billion years. It was an exciting feeling.

I often have that feeling as I write a blog post. I have that feeling right now. I have that feeling a lot - the sense that I'm not "with it," that I'm an outsider, looking at my world as if I'm a stranger in a strange land.

Did my hike into the remote Alaskan wilderness inspire me to pursue more less traveled roads? It could have. It makes an interesting story anyway.

But maybe not. After all, something inside me on that day was already urging me to go where others hadn't gone before...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use photo purchased from fotolia.com)

Steve Jobs - The Great Man of the Information Age

When I saw the news that Steve Jobs had died, I felt the loss so strongly that it almost knocked me off my chair.

It's impossible to overestimate his impact on our lives. Steve Jobs was to the information age what Henry Ford was to the industrial age - the most important innovator and contributor of his time. Nearly everything we value most about computers can be attributed to his work. Imagine what the world of computers would be like today if he had not lived.

Wisdom from Steve Jobs (video, 15:05)

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Asheville River Arts District - Hands and Heart at Work

While in Asheville, North Carolina, we visited the River Arts District in the southern part of town. After walking through several galleries, we were the first customers of the day at the Wedge Brewery (most popular of nine breweries in Asheville). We enjoyed our drafts in the outside seating area, surrounded by lurking pigeons and cool metal art.

On the wall of the building was a simple mural with these words:

He who works with his hands is laborer.
He who works with his hands and head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and heart is an artist.
- St. Francis of Assisi

When I work with my hands, it's at the keyboard of a computer. I always work with my head, and sometimes with my heart. So as a writer, that would make me a craftsman who is sometimes an artist.

The art in Asheville is amazingly diverse. In one of the shops, a woman who works with her hands and her heart had this self-description posted on the wall next to her work: "Since childhood, I've been on a journey towards my spiritual space. When I began working in clay, my beingness merged with the oneness of the universe, transforming my approach to art. My work is about the evolution of soul towards ultimate light."

Okay...Anyway, her work was eye-catching. I was taken by the image of a women with dark, deathlike eyes. An incubus was growing out of her back, and the skulls of both the incubus and the woman were cracked open and rats were crawling out. She definitely had artistic talent. The piece was quite original and thought-provoking. What thoughts? Uh...I think I'll keep them to myself.

Down the street, another artist, Marston Blow, was busy creating clay bowls. But not your ordinary clay bowls. These bowls SING. For real. You know how you can run your finger around certain crystal wine glasses, producing a tone? These bowls produce a tone so loud you can feel the vibrations in your body. Amazing. She learned to create these bowls by accident. She left one in the kiln too long and she discovered that when she tapped it a tone was produced. She followed up with trial and error until she got the size and firing just right. There are other singing bowls in the world, but none made with clay. One of these bowls became my wife Kathleen's birthday present.

Marston Blow worked with her hands and trusted her heart...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

My Son, The Genius

In 1988, when my youngest son, Teller, was 17, he worked shoulder-to-shoulder with me to create a computer program that scored and generated reports for the Success Style Profile, a first-generation brain-based personality test I had created. He also did the work for the most recent version of that program, called MindFrames.

The program functioned perfectly. More importantly, I learned that we worked well together. The process of design, specification, coding, testing and debugging went smoothly. I thought of him as some kind of genius (and I still do). I was impressed with his skill, creativity, work ethic and commitment to quality.

Later, he attended Texas Tech University, majoring in computer science. But he was a self-taught programmer, and he discovered that he learned a lot more and a lot faster on his own. And he was unimpressed with some of his instructors. He eventually concluded that college was a waste of time for him. So he left Texas Tech to join my company, Performance Support Systems.

His first project was to write the program for 20/20 Insight, a breakthrough 360-degree feedback system. And the rest is history. He's been a part of our core team for over 20 years now.

His latest accomplishment is ProStar Coach, a totally new kind of online self-development system. It's been in use for over a year now, and together we're exploring new ways to expand its power.

I never foresaw that my sons would be so bright in the IT world. My other son is more of a systems guy, a Ph.D. working for a company in New York City. And I never expected that Teller and I would be so compatible as coworkers. But we are. So for me, work is fun, and life is good.

How did I ever get so lucky?

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

You Have Amazing Powers of Creativity

Last night I dreamed that I was walking down a street in a town I had never seen before. Across the street was a building that appeared to be about 100 years old. It was a 2-story building with a stone facade and a high arching entrance-way. Was it a school? A prison? A museum? Something about the archway caught my eye, and I stopped to look. It seemed to bend a little, which I thought was odd. Then, suddenly, the archway and much of the building on both sides collapsed into a heap. Later in the dream I was with some other people as we explored the inside of the building, trying to find our way to the collapsed center. At some point, I looked up and saw a person on the second story looking down at me from an old iron bed. A strange medical apparatus hung from the ceiling, and I realized it was some kind of primitive hospital. We continued walking in search of the rubble.

The thing about the dream...

• Nothing like this had ever happened to me
• Nothing I saw was familiar
• Everything I saw in the dream was incredibly detailed
• After the dream, I remembered everything in detail

Here's the point - My brain did this for me!

Woohoo! How about that for creativity? The human brain's ability to create all-new images is amazing.  It can create detailed scenarios that have never happened before.

I know for a fact that this creative power is a normal part of every human brain. Years ago, I used to do programs about the brain, and when I got to explaining how creativity works I would illustrate with an exercise. I would ask the participants to close their eyes and imagine the pop singer Madonna. Imagine that she has bright red hair. Imagine that she is dressed in combat camouflage fatigues. Imagine that she's holding a huge 3-foot-long lollipop, holding it as if it were a flag. Now imagine that she leans forward to whisper something to you. Listen carefully. What does she say?

It was fun to listen to what the participants heard. Each message was different. And everyone was able to do the exercise. Everyone was able to see an image and experience something in their mind that had never happened in the history of planet Earth.

Did you do the exercise? What did Madonna say to you? You have amazing powers of imagination and creativity. Acknowledge that you have this capability. Use it!

A Fortune Cookie...

Release your imagination, and your dreams will soar.

More Fortune Cookies...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength .

Story - Donkey in the Well

I came across this story on the Web, author unknown. When I got to the end, I realized I had heard it before. I also realized that I really love this story.

Enjoy...

One day a farmer's donkey fell down into a well. The animal cried piteously for hours as the farmer tried to figure out what to do. Finally he decided the animal was old and the well needed to be covered up anyway, it just wasn't worth it to retrieve the donkey. So he invited all his neighbors to come over and help him. They all grabbed a shovel and began to shovel dirt into the well.

At first, the donkey realized what was happening and cried horribly. Then, to everyone's amazement, he quieted down. A few shovel loads later, the farmer finally looked down the well and was astonished at what he saw.

With every shovel of dirt that hit his back, the donkey was doing something amazing. He would shake it off and take a step up. As the farmer's neighbors continued to shovel dirt on top of the animal, he would shake it off and take a step up.

Pretty soon, everyone was amazed as the donkey stepped up over the edge of the well and trotted off!

Life is going to shovel dirt on you, all kinds of dirt. The trick to getting out of the well is to shake it off and take a step up. Each of your troubles is a stepping stone. Shake it off and step up!

PERSEVERANCE, COMPOSURE, CREATIVITY, OPTIMISM....

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use image purchased from fotolia.net)

Art and Sham Art - It's Important to Know the Difference

When Kathleen and I explore the Texas Hill Country, we usually go in search of the unique, the beautiful, and the excellent.

On one recent excursion, we visited the Laguna Gloria extension of the Austin Museum of Art in Austin, Texas. The indoor-outdoor venue was built in 1916 by Clara Driscoll, a remarkable woman who once fought to raise funds to preserve the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas. The 12-acre property is situated on a hill a few hundred feet from Lake Austin. I enjoyed walking through the gardens and viewing the outdoor sculptures.

Alas IV (1993) Betty Gold

Until I came across this "sculpture," that is. It's title: "Alas IV."

Alas, indeed. It caused me to cringe and imagine this dialog between an artist and a welder:

"Look, you've got a nice variety of scrap metal here. What I'd like you to do is just pick up pieces at random and weld them together to make whatever shape comes to mind. Ideally, the sheets will come together at all sorts of odd angles. The finished piece has to be real stable, because I'm going to mount it outdoors. Can you do it?"

"Sure."

"Good. Can you have it done by next Monday?"

"If not sooner. But it's going to cost you $300."

"Not a problem. Go ahead, then, and when you get it about three feet tall, stop and call me."

Now, I'm sure nothing like this actually happened. The problem is, it could have happened and the result would have been at least as impressive as this meaningless stack of junk. It doesn't pass the "a-kid-could-have-done-it" test. Or the "it-could-have-been-knocked-off-in-a-couple-hours" test. Or the "I-could-have-found-this-in-a-dumpster" test.

Not everything that a human being can do automatically qualifies as art. You have to draw the line somewhere. Yes of course you can put it in a museum; but if it doesn't communicate anything meaningful and there's no visible evidence of achievement, I insist that it's not art.

I once saw a petrified turd pinned to the bottom of a cigar box in the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. I don't care what the art critics say, it's not art.

For a long time, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City displayed a set of seven large, pale canvases. The only shape on the canvases was a single horizontal line. The canvases had subtle differences, but for all practical purposes they looked almost alike. The group of paintings was entitled, "Seven Stations of the Crucifixion." With all due respect to the New York City poobahs, this is not art.

The Austin Museum of Art downtown has some impressive works by young artists. But it also has some ordinary furniture displayed in one corner. It's not there for the comfort of the visitors. No, some "performance artists" regularly come in for a couple hours, hang out with the furniture and pretend that they are in an incompatible relationship. I'm sorry. I don't care if university professors do ramble on about it, this doesn't make it art.

What is it, then? I heard one silver-haired lady loudly refer to it with a two-syllable word that begins with "b" and ends with "t." Yes, but to be polite, I'll call it sham art - artless concoctions displayed as if they were real art. Sham art per se doesn't surprise me or bother me. You see it for sale cheap in arts and craft shows all the time. What's bothersome is that many museum curators don't seem to know the difference.

Actually, it's more than bothersome. It pisses me off. Because there's a lot of real art out there. And if we are to treasure it and teach our kids about it, we have to know the difference. And stop displaying sham art in museums.

You want to see some real art? Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Frick Collection in New York City, and look for some of the paintings of Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675).

Or go to the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas in Austin. Catch their collection of renaissance and baroque art, or their James Michener collection of contemporary art.

Or check out this this outdoor sculpture and others by Charles Umlauf at the Umlauf Sculpture Garden and Museum in Austin.

War Mother (1939) Charles Umlauf

Well, the folks at the Austin Museum of Art told us they're going to have to close their doors permanently in a few months. Maybe they should have been more discriminating about what they put in front of the public....

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Buildingo Personal Strength . (2011 photos by Kathleen Scott, used with permission)

Pay-at-the-Pump - Your Man Was There When the Idea Was Born

I stopped at a Mobil station the other day to fill my gas tank. I've done this countless times, so I pretty much do it without thinking. The only thing I might concentrate on is a bug stain as I try to clean the windshield. And, oh yeah - the price of gas.

2005 photo by Derek Jensen

But in a way, paying for gas is less painful than it used to be. Pay-at-the-pump technology, now commonplace, makes the transaction quick and easy. This is always a good thing when a business want its customer's money.

Do you remember the days when you had to go into the station to pay? That would be back in the early 1980s.

This system caused gas stations a big problem - "drive-away customers." These were people who filled their tanks and instead of going into the station to pay, they'd simply drive off. Yes, this passive-aggressive behavior was a crime, but enforcing it was nearly impossible. And it made it hard for many stations to turn a profit.

This cultural phenomenon was a big problem for the gas companies. But as chance would have it, I played a role in solving it.

Back then I'd occasionally contract as an adjunct trainer for the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL). Their headquarters is in Greensboro, North Carolina, and they had just opened a new branch office in La Jolla, California. One of their first course offerings in La Jolla was the "Targeted Innovation" course, and they wanted my help.

The course taught the process and techniques of team creative problem solving. Towards the end of the course, we asked participants to come up with new solutions for a real problem that was challenging their company. Three of the participants happened to be brand managers from Mobil. Their problem? You guessed it: drive-away customers.

I remember that as they followed the process, they came up with several dozen ideas. But when they considered the notion of making people pay at the pump with credit cards, their eyes got real big. Although the idea of paying at the pump had a serious downside - all of the pumps in the Mobil system would need to be replaced - they came up with a plan. When they briefed it on the final day, they claimed they were going to implement the system with several stations as a pilot project.

Well, the rest is history. The concept was so successful that they expanded it, and all their competitors adopted it, too. It took a couple decades, but eventually pay-at-the-pump became the industry standard nationwide.

So, the next time you fill up, forget about the pain it's causing to your pocketbook. Instead, think about the convenience! And remember that I - your blog buddy - was there to help seed the idea with Mobil over 25 years ago.

It's cool to reflect that actions always have consequences, and if you're doing your best to contribute something of value, sometimes you can have an unexpected impact down the road.

So once again, I'm a minor footnote to history!

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2011. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to free use of photo from Wikimedia Commons)

ProStar Coach - What Necessity Mothered This Invention?

"Necessity is the mother of invention." Some say Plato first said this, but in fact no one knows for sure who did. But now people say it all the time. And it's true.

Having recently invented ProStar Coach, I'm keenly aware of the necessity that inspired me.

One thing I’ve learned over and over as a small business entrepreneur is that most things worth doing are hard. It’s hard to get people to contribute their best work and cooperate as a team. It’s hard to go against the grain and create a new product. It’s hard to compete in the marketplace. It’s hard to deal with the surprises that come up in any given business week. It’s hard to survive the downturns in the economy.

And not just for business owners and top managers. It’s hard for everybody who’s trying to find a good job, succeed in it, have a family and enjoy life. The myriad challenges that people have to deal with are mind-boggling.

I’ve always been fascinated with why certain people strive, achieve and succeed—and others don’t. Why are some people life-long learners, while others roll their eyes at the idea of self-improvement?

And what can I do to help?

For many, the world of work is a dreary aspect of life, and not everyone is striving and achieving on a path to success. Some people don’t make good career choices, and they end up in jobs they don’t like. Some people don’t work well with others. Some lack perspective. Others aren’t motivated to learn. Many aren’t inclined to give their best work every day. They dislike their bosses and do only what they’re told to do. And even then, they don’t do it very well. In tough times, they get laid off. Afterward, to get by, they end up doing work they like even less.

I’ve also come to accept that not all business executives feel it’s important to develop their people. Maybe they don’t believe that to get results, managers have to lead. Maybe they don’t appreciate how learning works or what it takes for an employee to change a work habit. Maybe they feel that investing in learning and development won’t make much difference, and that money is more wisely invested elsewhere.

These realities sound grim, but they're part of the reason I've been working so hard these past five years on an online self-directed, self-development system. It's not a cure for people who've lost the desire to improve themselves. It's for the other folks - help for all the high-achievers and lifelong learners out there...

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength .

Structure Will Set You Free - Some Resources to Help You Focus

Most people think a disciplined approach to life is the opposite of a creative approach to life.

Actually, that's not true. Nearly all highly productive creative people have ingrained patterns of focus and discipline. Without work structure, where they focus on priority projects in a disciplined way - instead of doing something else that's easier and more fun - they wouldn't get their creative projects done. The most successful creative talents have well-established patterns of structure that get them focused during specific times of the day.

I used to kid some of my spontaneous, fun-loving creative friends by saying, "Structure will set you free." They would laugh as if I didn't know what I was talking about. There goes Denny being Denny. But I wasn't kidding.

Structure means focus, which means limits and boundaries. Because creativity has unlimited possibilities, it's capable of expanding in every direction, like a gas. But once a gas expands, it looses its identity, power and usefulness. Contain it, and the gas can be directed to accomplish something specific.

Beth Westmark, a long-time blog buddy who has enormous literary talent, posted recently about seeing the light about focus. It's an inspiring revelation.

To achieve what you want, time is the most precious resource you have. And it's running out, baby. Here are a couple other resources that may help... 

1. A secret I learned from Eben Pagan about getting focused...

2. The best book I've ever read on staying focused...

Make 2011 the year you kicked major butt.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Permission to use photo purchased from istockphoto.com)

Peggy Cloar's Quest to Make the Best Chocolate in the World

I was sitting in High's Cafe in Comfort, Texas, enjoying two of my favorite things in life. One was a really good chicken salad sandwich. It wasn't the absolute best I've ever tasted. But it was way up there. Unlike any chicken salad sandwich I've ever eaten, it was made with big chunks of free-range chicken in a tangy sour cream and mayo sauce. 

This made it hard to concentrate on the other favorite thing, which was a passionate woman I've come to call "The Chocolate Lady," who was talking nonstop about the special artisan dark chocolate she's created. Her name is Peggy Cloar, the founder of High Street Chocolate (see http://www.highstreetchocolate.com).

"Studies have shown that dark chocolate is one of the healthiest foods on the planet," she said. "It's because it has such a high level of antioxidants, which prevent cell damage that leads to age-related diseases like diabetes and heart disease. In fact, chocolate has the highest ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) value known to man. Twice the antioxidants of red wine and three times the antioxidants in green tea. And the fats found in cocoa are actually healthy fats, the same oleic acid found in olive oil."

She mentioned other health benefits, but I kind of blanked out for a minute there when I took another bite of my chicken salad sandwich.

"It all depends on how it's made," she said. "Dark chocolate should be about 70% cocoa solids. The rest is sugar with some soy lecithin. But most makers use cocoa butter for half the chocolate content. Cocoa butter is derived from chocolate liquor, which is the fermented, pressed chocolate nibs. Many chocolate makers saturate their chocolate with processed sugars to make it sweeter, which reduces manufacturing costs."

She was intense and animated as she talked a mile a minute about how she came to care about chocolate so much. She was working on a brownie recipe. An exacting cook, she couldn't find a commercial chocolate she liked, so she began experimenting with making her own. This led her to discover how chocolate is made. 

Eventually she hit upon a blend of 60% cocoa, 10% cocoa butter and 30% of her own proprietary sugar compound. Plus a dash of Tahitian vanilla. She's secretive about what she does to the sugar, but she claims she made it more potent, so she doesn't need to use as much of it. 

I tried some samples. The regular dark chocolate lingered on my tongue in a succession of flavors - first a deep richness that reminded me of velvet, then a hint of floral-citrus and a finish of the best caramel-vanilla. The espresso, made with beans she ground herself, lived up to its name. She also had orange- and mint-flavored dark chocolate bars. This was some really good chocolate. And it was different. 

At more than $20 per 8-ounce box, you don't pass this stuff out to kids on Halloween night. You enjoy it with fine wine.

But what impressed me most was Peggy. Here was this woman who, after the world had been making chocolate for centuries, had embarked on a quest to make a better chocolate bar. Better for you, and delicious. She was a chocolate techie, going up against Hershey, Nestles, Godiva and the other big boys. But what she had accomplished was so highly technical that the ordinary chocolate-eater would need some education to appreciate what they were paying for.

It reminded me of my own business. In my life, I've created MindFrames, a breakthrough personality assessment, better because it's based on recent neuroscience. I created 20/20 Insight, a breakthrough feedback technology, better because it's easier to use, more versatile and more affordable than any other. And now I've created ProStar Coach, a breakthrough online self-directed learning and development system, better because it facilitates long-term reinforcement of skills and also focuses on building personal strength. It also features a unique coaching network, and a breakthrough feedback technology. But all these innovations defied the status quo, so Ihad some explaining to do.

There I go, about to get techie on you, just like The Chocolate Lady. My heart went out to her. She's really onto something, but she not only has the challenge of making superb chocolate, she has to figure out how to explain her achievement to people who just want that chocolate high and who are reluctant to try something different. 

In my heart, I said a blessing for Peggy and for all the people who are trying to make something better in the world. We benefit from their passionate pioneering, but it isn't easy to go against the grain.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Photos by Kathleen Scott, used with permission)

With Creativity You Can Face Any Problem

I've been a manager for over 40 years. In that time, I've had to face a lot of problems. Some of these would more aptly be called disasters. But in every single case, what we did to recover and move on turned out to be superior to the path we were on before things went south.

That's 100% of the time, we ended up in better shape than if the problems had never happened. 

Now, I'm not inviting more problems. No, sir. We have our hands full with the challenges that pop up each day, thank you very much. And then of course there's the biggie, the inevitable Surprise of the Week.

But I am affirming the power of creativity. Once my rice bowl is shattered, I have to come up with something to replace it. Another rice bowl, or...something else entirely. Something better.

Most people associate creativity with the arts. But to me, creativity is a power tool for everything in life. Also, I think it's nonsense that only gifted people can be creative. I believe that anyone can be creatiive. Coming up with a new way to do something is simply one of the things any normal human brain can do.

It helps to approach problem solving with an open mind, to be willing to consider alternative ways of doing things.

The classic technique is called "brainstorming," which is nothing more than setting aside fifteen or twenty minutes when criticism or judgments aren't allowed. Write down as many ideas as you can, regardless of their practical merit. You can evaluate them later.

It also helps to consider lots of ideas. As novelist John Steinbeck said, "Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen." Which is cool, because the first creative thought you have is rarely the most useful one.

And ask the people around you for their ideas. You might hear something you can work with. Maybe not the way it was originally suggested to you, but with a little work...

One trick I use is to look at how people in vastly different activities approach similar challenges. For example, if I wanted to improve the main page on our web site, I might ask how other industries try to make a good first impression. Such as rock stars, for example. They rely on celebrity buzz, album covers and warm-up acts to set up their customers for maximum enjoyment. So I ask, how could we do something like that on our website? Not that this technique always gives us the right solution, but it stimulates our thinking. Gets both feet outside the box.

Be ready for resistance. If you believe in an idea, be ready to champion it. As creativity expert E. Paul Torrance once said, "It takes courage to be creative. Just as soon as you have an idea, you're in a minority of one."

INSIGHT - You have the power to be creative, to look at your problem in a new way and think of novel solutions.

ACTION - The next time you're faced with a difficult challenge, consider taking a different approach. It might be something like how to deal with a disruptive, emotional individual who makes the town meeting so difficult that no one wants to be a part of it.

Make a list of at least 15 ways of dealing with your problem. Consider some of the recommendations above to write down as many approaches as you can. Have fun with it. If you can, get suggestions from other people. Then pick one or two that seem interesting, and use your imagination to improve them.

Like anything else, if you do this kind of thing often enough, it will become a habit. If you know you can think creatively anytime you want, you'll be amazed at what this will do for your self-confidence!

          "The world of reality has its limits; the world of
          imagination is boundless."
               - Jean-Jacques Rouseau

The Rewards of Creativity and an Open Mind

I recently co-authored an ebook in which I said that most people aren't very effective at giving encouragement, that it's possible and important to learn to do it better. This opinion may sound harmless and acceptable, but I'm pretty sure that this is not the prevailing wisdom. This notion of being outside the box made me think of one of my favorite quotes...

"What is now proved was once only imagined." - William Blake

Everything that's accepted as truth today was once unknown to anyone. Every explanation and every principle has its beginning in the imagination of a single person's mind. Things considered common knowledge today were once considered odd, radical, or even dangerous. A new notion can be unsettling. It may seem strange. It may be unproven. It may challenge what we already know. It may ask us to see things in a new way. It may threaten to replace our understanding, which took years to acquire. The natural tendency is to reject a new notion, regardless of its merits.

I believe that giving a new idea a fair hearing is a no-lose proposition. If it proves to be invalid, you can just throw it away. In the end, the best ideas prove themselves and become commonplace. But you might be dead by the time that happens. If knowledge is power, imagination and open-mindedness give a significant advantage.

The Personal Strength of Creativity - Magical Zulu Bowls and Cups Made from Telephone Wire

One Saturday not too long ago I got to do three really cool things, which is pretty good for one day.

First, I got to pet an alpaca. 

We went to the Old Oaks Ranch, which is about five miles north of Wimberley, Texas. The ranch raises alpacas; sells fleece, yarn and woven products; and has one of the best outdoor sculpture gardens in Texas. A typical alpaca is bigger than a large dog and smaller than a pony. They're a little skittish, but if you let them sniff you, you can stroke their backs (not their heads). They don't bite and they make a funny little purring sound. Pretty neat!

The second cool thing was Market Days at Wimberley, the second-largest outdoor market in Texas (check the photo gallery). It's a monthly event on a dedicated 20-acre site with over 400 stalls. It's like a massive combo flea market and arts and crafts show. It features an unprecedented variety of really good stuff! I thought, "This is the place to come when you need to buy a gift." It's worth traveling 100 miles to do some shopping.

One of the stalls featured beautiful cups and bowls made by Zulu tribesmen out of scrap telephone wire. Yes, you may have to read that sentence again, because the idea is so outside the box. The quality of workmanship is phenomenal. 

It all started when a few men decided to wrap their walking sticks in the colored wire. They discovered they could make wonderful patterns, and they moved on to cups and bowls. Soon they were making so much money doing this that they quit their day jobs.

I was wowed by the creativity of it. About 30 years ago I used to co-train a course called "Targeted Innovation" at the Center for Creative Leadership. One of the skills we taught was "outside-the-box thinking." In one exercise we showed participants an ordinary brick and ask them to list other creative uses for the brick. The trick was to realize there are three levels of creative thinking:
Level 1 - Other uses of a brick as a construction resource 
Level 2 - Non-construction uses of the brick in its current form
Level 3 - Uses of the brick's materials when you change the brick's form

I think the Zulu tribesmen were operating somewhere at Level 2 with their creative thinking: What are some non-telephonic uses of the materials in this telephone cable?
The solution they came up with is magical, because you can look at that gorgeous cup as long as you want, and you still can't figure out how they did it!

Of course, this kind of creativity is possible for anyone. But it takes extra effort to see beyond the obvious to "what could be." That's why creativity is a form of personal strength.

Oh yeah, there was that third cool thing. I got to see my favorite basketball team give their best effort to beat West Virginia by 21 points to advance to the NCAA Finals against Butler. And as you may know, the Blue Devils won a close, hard-fought game against the Bulldogs to become the 2010 NCAA National Champions. I know most spectators were cheering for underdog Butler, but I have strong Duke loyalties and as a fan, this is as cool as it gets.

Post by Dennis E. Coates, Ph.D., , Copyright 2010. Building Personal Strength . (Photos by my wife, Kathleen Scott. Used with permission.)

OPTIMISM - Glass Over-flowing

I recently posted a video of Jack Canfield talking about optimism. Optimism doesn't mean banishing negative thoughts. It means that when "stuff happens," you bring the positive considerations into the equation, so you see both the positives and the negatives - a true, balanced view of reality.

So when something bad happens, how resilient are you? Is your glass half-empty, or is it half-full?

Let's get real...

• There'll be glaring disadvantages. But what are the advantages in your situation?
• You'll be limited in what you can do. But you can also recognize the opportunities.
• You'll have problems. But you know you can find solutions. With creativity you can even turn your situation into a positive one - maybe even better than it was before.
• You have weaknesses. So does everyone. What you need to do now is focus on what you have going for you - your strengths.
• What did you learn today from what happened to you?
• What did you learn by observing other people's behavior?
• What happened to you today that was a blessing?
• You've dealt with worse situations . You know you can handle this one.
  
• Who are your allies - the people who want you to succeed? Who can empower you?
• What actions can you take? What will you do next?
  

Seriously, realistically...how about glass over-flowing?

Thomas Edison on Personal Strength

Five years ago, while living in Florida, my wife and I visited Thomas Edison's winter home and lab in Fort Myers, Florida. I learned that Henry Ford also had a retreat there, only a few hundred feet away. In his lab, Edison was trying to develop an artificial rubber for automobile tires.

Many think of him as the inventor of the electric light bulb. Actually, several other people had already created electric light bulbs, but these prototypes were expensive and unreliable. Edison's genius was to perfect technologies to make them commercially practical. At the age of 37 he formed The Edison Electric Light Company with funding from J. P. Morgan and the Vanderbilt family. "We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles," he said.

He also worked on perfecting the phonograph and the motion picture camera. Before he died he held over 1,000 patents. And his Menlo Park facility in New Jersey was the first industrial research and development lab in America.

People were amazed at his accomplishments, and he was interviewed often. Much of what he says about his work is actually about personal strength.

CREATIVITY - “If there's a way to do it better . . . find it.”

EFFORT - "I never did anything worth doing by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work."

INITIATIVE -  "A little twist to the usual, 'Everything comes to he who waits.' Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits."

OPTIMISM - “I haven’t failed, I’ve found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

PERSEVERANCE - “Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."

SELF-CONFIDENCE - “If we all did the things we are capable of, we would astound ourselves.”

SELF-DEVELOPMENT - "I've never made a mistake. I've only learned from experience."