Jennifer Yaros always wanted to be a writer, but knew it was not likely that she would pen the next great American novel. Needing to eat and pay the bills, she found a job after college as a technical writer and later started working for a company called Radcom, an instructional design and technical writing company.
Over the years, she was able to create new positions within the company that better fit her personality and allowed her to exhibit her creativity. She became an instructional designer, an editor, a project manager, an operations manager and VP of Operations.
As the company continued to grow and Jennifer gained more knowledge and self-confidence, she came up with a new idea. Why not write a book to use as part of the consulting company?! They would have an actual product, to help potential clients solve problems, while at the same time build credibility for Radcom.
At the time she had been studying about business creativity and innovation and realized that companies need innovation to remain relevant and to grow.
The owner of Radcom, Angie Dianetti, loved the book idea, thus Jennifer’s brand, BrainSpark and her book, “Conditioning Your Mind to Fuel Creativity” became a reality. The book is currently available on Amazon and is a collection of the training and knowledge Jennifer has accumulated about creativity, including how individuals can develop their own personal creativity.
The book aligns creativity into three personal preparation categories.
Prepare the Body and Senses: each individual must first prepare the body. They must be able to see, feel and touch a new idea or process.
Prepare Creative Thinking: the mind must be open to various types of thought, whether divergent, outside-the-box, or lineal.
Prepare the Ego: everyone has to get past that little voice in the head that says, you’re not good enough or smart enough. Plus, everyone needs to be able to work in a collaborative environment with other egos and ideas to maximize creativity.
That is the foundation of the book, to help people improve creative thinking. Exercises to increase creativity are found within the book.
One of Jennifer’s favorites exercises is based upon her sister’s past experience when she first visited a boyfriend’s family home. Her sister, who is short, dated an extremely tall man, from a family of tall individuals. When her sister was at their home, she found that the counters were very high, and Jennifer’s sister had a difficult time reaching anything in the kitchen.
The exercise encourages individuals to imagine designing a kitchen for someone short in stature or very tall, such as an NBA star. What types of change would be helpful or useful? This creative exercise forces the person into someone else’s shoes and causes them to look at a problem from a completely new perspective.
Creative Thinking Applies to Small Business Owners
Small business owners often struggle to find the next client or pay check. They can get caught up in the day-to-day business and completely neglect creative thinking that could get them out of their rut and open up a whole new world of possibilities.
Taking time to ask the right questions, can be the key to starting the creative thinking process, which could help a business grow.
-What is my exact target market?
-What are my client’s needs?
-Why would they want my product or service?
-How can I lower my costs?
“Creative thinking is looking at your problems and trying to come up with new solutions, new ideas to solve this problem, instead of just doing the same thing the same way. If it didn’t work the first time, didn’t work the second time, and didn’t work the third time, it’s not going to work the fourth time either,” according to Jennifer.
Many times, it’s difficult for a manager or owner of a business to accept new ideas. It is much easier to say,
“Oh no, we can’t change things like that.”
Jennifer reminded us, that thought will stifle creative thinking in an organization, lead to employee stagnation and miss new avenues for profit or business generation.
The better question is, “How can we do it better,” which opens a whole new avenue for ideas and creative thinking.
Perfectionism can be a deterrent to creative thinking. Wanting to get every piece of information before submitting a report or article for consideration, stalls the project and limits the person’s own ability to draw a conclusion and make a valuable recommendation from the data.
Creative thinking is scary! It involves some risk for the individual to put the new idea or concept out there for scrutiny and evaluation by others.
In her workshops, Jennifer encourages participants to put ideas to work that “Ignite Innovation.” These are ideas that have made it through the creative stage and are ready for implementation.
Schools and teachers are very interested in her creative instruction. Educators need to consider the individual needs of each student and streamline their lesson plans to meet the needs of each student in a class. They are also preparing students to solve problems of the future, problems that do not exist yet using tools that don’t exist yet.
True to her teaching, Jennifer is continually seeking new and innovative methods to teach and bring creative thinking to her clients and their businesses. Her process is constantly under scrutiny and always open to new and better ideas.
When asked what she felt was a good starting point to develop creative thinking, she answered,
“Journaling is a wonderful way to work on your creative thinking. First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is write down something that I’m grateful for and then write down something that I would like to achieve that day. In the evening, I write down if I achieved my goal, plus why or why not. It helps me focus, but it also starts me on a positive note. Writing has been proven to help stimulate creative thinking and make unusual connections.”
Jennifer is also open to new goals and achievements in her personal life. She is an ultra-runner, competing in marathons and longer competitions. She recently completed a five-day, 80-mile, solo, backpacking hike through the Susquehannock Trail in Pennsylvania. She only saw one other person during her trek. It was a lonely endeavor and taught her that even though she’s an introvert, she needs to have other people in her life.
Jennifer is involved with various organizations. She has been a member of the Association for Talent Development, the Society for Technical Communication and a member of Women for Economic and Leadership Development. She is also active with Toastmasters, which helps hone her speaking and presentation skills.
Reach out to Jennifer at her website https://www.brainspark-creativity.com/ , which includes background and contact information.
She can also be found on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/JenniferYarosBrainSpark/ Twitter, https://twitter.com/JenniferYaros and LinkedIN, https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferyaros/.
Jennifer Yaros has learned to open her mind to creative thinking to ‘Soar to Success’ and can help other individuals add creative thinking to their daily operation. We enjoyed our conversation with Jennifer, be sure to listen to the full interview, that provided the basis for this article, on the Soar to Success Podcast.
