The Accidental Creative

The Accidental Creative: How to be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice by Todd Henry

Developing Your Creative Rhythm

The author’s quote from the book flap sets the stage perfectly:

“You go to work each day tasked with (1) inventing brilliant solutions that (2) meet specific objectives by (3) defined deadlines. If you do this successfully, you get to keep your job. If you don’t, you get to work on your resume. The moment you exchange your creative efforts for money, you enter a world where you will have to be brilliant at a moment’s notice. (No pressure, right?)”[1]

To attempt to be perpetually brilliant and increasingly productive, without changing the basic habits and structure of your life to accommodate that undertaking, is a futile effort.[2]

Henry develops the following elements as a structure to guide your creative potential, providing you with the stability and clarity to engage your problems head-on.

Focus – in order to create effectively, you need a clear and concrete focus
Relationships – if you want to thrive, you need to systematically engage with other people, in part to be reminded that life is bigger than your immediate problems
Energy – to make the most of your day, you need to establish practices around energy management
Stimuli – if you want to regularly generate brilliant ideas, you must be purposeful about the kinds of stimuli you are putting in your head
Hours – you need to make sure that the practices that truly make you a more effective creator are making it onto your calendar[3]

Practices in each of these five F-R-E-S-H areas provide the foundation for a life that is prolific, brilliant, and healthy.

Wait a minute – you’ve got a problem with the “creative” label? Call yourself anything you want, but if you’re responsible for solving problems, developing strategies, or otherwise straining your brain for new ideas, you are a creative – even if you end up being one accidentally.[4]

Thanks for Bob Adams for content.

[1] The Accidental Creative, p 10

[2] Ibid, p 11

[3] Ibid, p 20-22

[4] Ibid, p 1

About Will

Would you like to fall in love with ministry again?

I want you and your ministry to experience the benefits of stunning, God-given clarity. As a pastor turned vision coach, I’ve worked with an unprecedented variety of churches from growing mega-churches and missional communities, to mainline revitalization and church plants. I started several interconnected organizations that help the church embody the movement that Jesus founded. My visionary planning tools, the Vision Frame and the Horizon Storyline are used by thousands of churches every year through my calling to raise up other consultants and trainers. In 2004, I founded Auxano, which I sold to LifeWay and continued to lead until 2020. In 2014, I created Younique to deliver gospel-centered life design through the church. It is now the world's only comprehensive, open-source life plan system.

In 2023, I founded Run Free as my official team-based consulting shop. We deliver the most innovative Vision Framing experiences available to church teams through the "Pivvot Process" and to network/denominational leaders through the "Denominee Process." We also offer team coaching to church leaders using the "Performance Practices" of meta-performance executive coaching.

I've written seven books: Future Church, Church Unique, Younique, Clarity Spiral, God Dreams, Innovating Discipleship, and Building Leaders. I enjoy speaking about clarity, calling, disciple-making, and vision. It's all about helping one another do more than we can imagine. I co-locate in Houston and Chile with my wife, Romy, and the last of my four children, Poema.

If you are interested in Run Free's consulting offerings or want to discuss getting a LifePlan, just reach out to set up a conversation.

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