Secrets of the Creative Brain

As a psychiatrist and neuroscientist who studies creativity, I’ve had the pleasure of working with many gifted and high-profile subjects over the years, but Kurt Vonnegut—dear, funny, eccentric, lovable, tormented Kurt Vonnegut—will always be one of my favorites. Kurt was a faculty member at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the 1960s, and participated in the first big study I did as a member of the university’s psychiatry department. I was examining the anecdotal link between creativity and mental illness, and Kurt was an excellent case study. He was intermittently depressed, but that was only the beginning. His mother had suffered from depression and committed suicide on Mother’s Day, when Kurt was 21 and home on military leave during World War II. While mental illness clearly runs in the Vonnegut family, so, I found, does creativity. For many of my subjects from that first study—all writers associated with the Iowa Writers’ Workshop—mental illness and creativity went hand in hand.

The Power of Process: What Young Mozart Teaches Us About the Secret of Cultivating Genius by Maria Popova On the “powerful blend of instruction, encouragement, and constant practice.” “The trick to creativity … is to identify your own peculiar talent and then to settle down to work with it for a good long time,” observed Denise Shekerjian in reflecting on her insightful interviews with MacArthur “genius” grantees. “Success is the product of the severest kind of mental and physical application,” attested Thomas Edison. “It is the man who carefully advances step by step, with his mind becoming wider and wider … who is bound to succeed in the greatest degree,” Alexander Graham Bell proclaimed. Anonymous portrait of the child Mozart, possibly by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni; painted in 1763 on commission from Leopold Mozart (public domain) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart [was] alleged to be an instant master performer at age three and a brilliant composer at age five. The Mozart family on tour: Leopold, Wolfgang, and Nannerl. Donating = Loving Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter.

10 Paradoxical Traits Of Creative People Editor's Note: This is one of the most-read leadership articles of 2013. Click here to see the full list. I frequently find myself thinking about whether I am an artist or an entrepreneur. I am simply trying my best to create my own unique path. It is safe to say that more and more entrepreneurs are artists, and artists of all kinds are entrepreneurs. Creativity is the common theme that drives both entrepreneurs and artists alike. Over this past Labor Day weekend, I found myself reading excerpts from distinguished professor of psychology and management Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi’s (pronounced me-HIGH chick-sent-me-HIGH-ee) seminal book Creativity: The Work and Lives of 91 Eminent People (HarperCollins, 1996). He writes: "I have devoted 30 years of research to how creative people live and work, to make more understandable the mysterious process by which they come up with new ideas and new things. 1. 2. 3. 5. 6. 7. 8. Without the passion, we soon lose interest in a difficult task. 10.

Praise versus Encouragement Most of us believe that we need to praise our children more. However, there is some controversy regarding this point. If we always reward a child with praise after a task is completed, then the child comes to expect it. However, if praise is not forthcoming, then its absence may be interpreted by the child as failure. According to Naomi Aldort, "Children who are subjected to endless commentary, acknowledgment, and praise eventually learn to do things not for their own sake, but to please others." One of the main differences between praise and encouragement is that praise often comes paired with a judgment or evaluation, such as "best" or "highest" in these examples. According to Bolton (1979, pg 181): Evaluative praise is the expression of favorable judgment about another person or his behaviors: "Eric, you are such a good boy." According to Ginott (1965): Evaluative praise.....creates anxiety, invites dependency, and evokes defensiveness. According to Taylor (1979): "Mr. "Bravo! Mr. Mr.