Practical Genius by Gina Amaro Rudan, Kevin Carroll Read Free Book Online Page B

to know exactly what your soft personal assets are—and to put them in the proper place on your balance sheet.
    What are your soft assets? They are the innate qualities of theheart you possess and probably lead with on the weekends! Soft assets are the best parts of the personal you, the one who dances on Saturday nights, jogs on Sunday mornings, and plays hopscotch with your kid in the driveway while waiting for the school bus. You’ve identified your hard assets; now let’s look at what makes up your soft assets—your passions, creativity, and values.
Passions
    Take a moment to think about your passions. What would you be doing every day if money weren’t an issue? How would you spend your time and other personal resources if you had infinite freedom and no restraints? Some passions have long been known as hobbies or favorite activities, but they’re really more than that. Your passions are where your mind wanders when you’re in a meeting that’s gone on too long or you’re waiting to catch a plane or riding the subway to work. Whether it’s cooking, playing the bassoon, or doing tae kwon do, in the end the passions we pursue contain major ingredients of our practical genius.
    What if you’ve ignored your passions and interests for so long that when asked you really can’t think of any? Don’t panic. Close your eyes for a moment and think about what they were when you were sixteen. Summon your sense memories to remind you of what those passions looked like, tasted like, and sounded like, and how they made you feel. Once you have a visual, hold on to it and consider it the foundation for the passion part of your genius development.
    For many of us, our form of play is our greatest passion, so don’t ignore play when considering your passion. Kevin Carroll, the renowned leader of the play movement, believes we all can find our inner genius through play: “Once you find your source of play let it be your life’s work so much so that no one, not even you, will be able to tell the difference between work and play.”
    Use the notion of play as a prompt to think about your passions:

If you had twenty-four hours left to live, how would you spend your play time? (NB: You are not allowed to say “with family”!)

If I were your fairy godmother and could wave a wand and transport you to your happiest, most joyful place, where would that be? And what would you be doing there?

We all have a “hard-on” for something. Come on, you know you do. What is it? Is it food, dance, travel, reading, adventure sports, fishing, golf, music, technology, fitness?

    One last tip for identifying your passions: think of one word that captures the be-all and end-all for you. I call this your “ultimate word.” My ultimate word is “freedom,” and each of my passions—traveling, scuba diving, and writing—gives me a euphoric feeling of freedom. What is the ultimate word for you? What does it say about your passions?
Creativity
    When was the last time you really used your creativity? Do you even think of yourself as a creative person? Or are you a “card-carrying” creative person who uses her creative abilities daily? Think about it: when was the last time you painted, sang a song, wrote a poem, came up with a new idea, or built something? Creativity is all those things and more; it’s your ability to make new connections between existing ideas or concepts. What is most interesting is that it’s fueled by the process of either conscious or unconscious insight. Whether you use it rarely or every day, you need to take a moment and think about your capacity for creativity. And think hard about it, because today it matters perhaps more than any other quantifiable human asset.
    In fact, creativity represents the new competitive advantage in corporate America. Why? Because it is only through creativity that we can begin to solve problems, innovate, and create better lives for our communities and ourselves. Organizations are