024

I can’t build off this spark of an idea and make it bigger

Moment Of Conception

All Tools
MOMENT OF CONCEPTION@2x

The Context

The practice of finding the pivot point that alters the trajectory of your creative expression. Debono’s work found that the process of making the word become flesh, to use a biblical metaphor, can actually become a form of muscle memory. In the same way that a yogi’s hips snap into the downward dog posture, the motor task of documenting meaningful things we notice can eventually become something we perform without conscious effort, allowing us to become more prolific than we ever thought possible. It just takes practice. That feeling when we say to ourselves, hey wait, I think there’s something there. When we feel our head and heart begin to make their voice known, louder and louder, insisting that we give this moment attention, so we open our heart to what wants to be born, follow that vibe and see where it takes us. That’s movement value. It helps you recognizing what you’re handling.

The Tool

two color

Moment Of Conception

MOMENT OF CONCEPTION -- The single spark of life that signals an idea’s movement value, almost screaming to you, something wants to be built here.

DeBono, the godfather of creativity, has published a substantial amount of research on this process of fully fleshing out your work. He calls movement value, which is the creative habit of recognizing beginnings. The discipline of identifying concepts that allow you to breed other ideas from those concepts, spawning as many creative offspring as possible

Scott's Take

Scott's Take

I’m reminded of an interesting interview with Rob Bell, the renowned author, pastor and filmmaker. He was asked about the creative process of his first bestseller, which launched his career as one of the great mass communicators of the last decade. Rob told this story about the driving force of his creative projects: “There’s a distinct aha and then quickly a number of other disparate things, that have nothing to do with it all of the sudden, have something to do with it. It’s like, boom, and then story, story, story, story, quote, statistic, newspaper article, story, insight, truth. And now there are six things on that page, and I don’t even know what they all have to do with each other. But I know they all have to do with that one fundamental insight. Everything just grows from there.”

The Rest

And the invigorating part is, once we spot that moment of conception, the real discipline becomes harnessing its energy source to populate all of the implications and applications and situations and locations and motivations and concepts and patterns and stories and images and actions and insights and numbers and observations and decorations and declarations and invitations and questions and consequences, that are connected to it. That’s when the creative process gets really interesting.

The Benefits

Discipline recognize conceptual beginnings
More fully and faster fleshing out your work
Grow trajectory of your creative expression
Turn seed of inspiration into forest of value

Table of Contents