Hey You! Be More Creative! But What Does That Mean?

The robots are coming. Wait! They are already here! 5G and quantum computing are already here. We keep warning people that the sky is falling and we need to be more creative in order to prepare for the tech advancements on the horizon. We need to retool our workforce and properly prepare our students to be ‘more creative’.

But what does it mean to ‘be more creative’?

How?

What does that even look like in our day-to-day life?

To most people, this is an abstract concept, which increases the likelihood of confusion. Confusion leads to inaction. This discourages people from taking the needed steps to improve their own creative courageous thinking. This will, in turn, affect their organizations and leave them wide open for disruption.

I left my job in June of 2019 to take on this imperative task with helping people bring more creative strategies into their own lives and subsequently, into their organizations. In 2020, I founded CAFFE Strategies, LLC to deliver these cutting edge training to reignite the childlike creative thinking abilities in the workforce.

Since I’ve taught creative geniuses my entire career, and somehow, despite being in a conforming culture and creativity stripping systems, I held on to my own creative thinking abilities throughout my childhood and well into my adulthood.

I held onto my curiosity. I held onto my courage. Now, with implementing the most current research (and creating my own), I am position well to teach others how to reclaim these basic qualities that were present at birth.

This is what I do and what I love.

In our exciting trainings, we take the top research from CAFFE Strategies ‘16 Diamond Tools of Creative Thinking' along with my own creative courageous curriculum and teach practical steps that people can immediately apply to increase their creative idea production and courage.

Since I have a solid background in teaching arts training at the university level, we also look at the power of artistic creativity and explore how problem solving through various mediums such as dance, music, theater and visuals, can improve your creative thinking abilities in many skill areas, like observation, perspective, metaphorical thinking, to name a few. This in turn increases innovative thinking in non-arts disciplines such as business, science, marketing and general problem solving.

The tech is here. There’s no avoiding it. It will be our human quality of creativity, curiosity and courage that will position us to incorporate tech for the advancement of mankind and not be crushed by it.

It’s time to reawaken our creativity, not only to prepare for the future workforce but also to ensure a life well lived.

Let’s get America back to its creative genius!

I’ll see you in class!

CAFFEstrategies.com

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Genein Letford is a best-selling author, award-winning educator and speaker on creative development. As a TEDx speaker, she has inspired many to reconnect to their imaginations, limitless courage and creative abilities in order to produce innovative ideas for the classroom and workspace. 

Her unique perspective combining financial literacy to creative literacy caused her to launch Alumni360, a nonprofit that weaves financial literacy, entrepreneurship and creative literacy for youth from low wealth areas. She is the founder and Chief Creative Officer of CAFFE Strategies, LLC which trains educators and employees to unleash their innovative thinking for themselves and in their areas of work. She believes creative literacy is a critical skill needed for today’s changing work climate and she is often called ‘America’s Creative Coach’ for her work in reigniting creativity around the nation.