How To Be Creative At Work Part 2: Are You A Director Or Collector?

by Yaro Starak, creator of Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

Hey everyone! Apparently it’s World Creativity Week, 15th – 21st April, I have no idea who made this up, but it’s a great excuse to go and do something FUN to celebrate I’m spending most of my World Creativity Week at the Gallery Of Modern Art facilitating crazy art programs for even crazier children.

(Actually, they’re lovely and I love seeing how creative and joyful these little humans are when they come and play in the art workshops.) We’re getting anywhere from 8000 to 15000 visitors a day, that’s some intense human traffic! I’ll take a bunch of pics of some of the coolest art works on my phone and pop them on my site to look at over the next week.

Anyway, this article, we’re picking up where we left off with the “How To Be Creative At Work” article. I’ve divided this article into two parts, as it covers a lot of information and I don’t want to overload you with text. Over the next two articles, we’ll look at the last four play personalities, the Director, the Collector, the Artist/Creator and the Storyteller. (Sounds a bit like a nursery rhyme I remember, the Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick maker!)

The trick with these play personalities is we need to find ways and make time to integrate them in our lives every day, even if it’s just for ten minutes or half an hour. When we play, we recharge our batteries. Play acts as a catalyst, it enlivens everything else we do. It’s useful at work because it not only gives us a buzz, it can inspire new ideas. We play to enter that timeless, mindless space, full of improvisational and creative potential. The elements of refresh and recharge in play can bring new insights to the surface that we can use in our business, and if nothing else, we will feel happier and be more productive in our work.

The Director – Do You Play It Like Oprah?

So, let’s begin with the Director. This play personality has a lot of clout in business and in other areas of life, mainly because they’re born organizers and connectors of people and love to be the central hub of any gathering. Oprah Winfrey is a great example of a powerful Director play personality, or think of famous film directors, like Martin Scorsese, Stephen Speilberg, Ridley Scott or Clint Eastwood. This play personality thrives on playing a central organizing role in any environment.

Someone who is skilled in managing this aspect of their character has a lot of emotional intelligence, because in order to be successful as a director, you need to be very gifted at creating and maintaining relationships, as well as giving directions to others in a way that is respectful but still challenges people to push beyond their comfort zones and produce great work. I would want anyone in a management position in my own business to display some of this character trait.

How It Works At The Office

This play personality needs to be connected to people and be able to engage their director play personality to get that buzz going in their work. If a director is already in a management role at work, then chances are, they’ll already be thriving on playing director. If this is not the case, or you work alone, then making time for playing director is an important exercise in refreshing and recharging your batteries. This can be done by spending time organizing a social gathering after work, or in the middle of the day during a lunch break. Consider becoming the director/organizer of whatever play activity you would most enjoy doing with like minded people or work mates. It could be organizing a work sports team or Friday night drinks or even a weekly lotto ticket with workmates.

If you work alone, it could be an online community of people who share similar interests and work in similar fields, like a face book group, or a meet up group, or a blog forum where people get to connect and communicate. It can be something outside of work with friends. The main thing is: give this play personality some time every day to engage in their Director element, where they can play at being a dynamic hub in a group of people, organising adventures that recharge their creative batteries and getting into a play state.

The Collector – Creators Of A World Of Their Own

Now, I have to own up to something about this play personality, I don’t know much about it! I have very little/almost none of the collector play personality, and I don’t know many people who display a lot of this trait. I’ll share with you what I have researched and found out about collectors, and some insights into how it can work in business.

Collector play personalities get vibed on very specific things, it can be anything from cards, music, cars or art, birds or reptiles, or it can very particular experiences, like solar eclipses or hot air ballooning. The key for collectors is that both the act of collecting, and the thing they collect puts them in a play state. It can be very consuming for them, they can spend a lot of time and money researching what they collect and immersing themselves in the experience of collecting. Some of a collector’s most enjoyable and fulfilling interactions are with other collectors of the same thing.

How Yaro Made Money From His Collector Play Personality

The most obvious way to integrate the Collector play personality in your business is if you can have a business that is based on the things you love to collect. Yaro is a great example of someone who used his collector play personality in business. His first online business was based on the game “Magic: the Gathering,” from what I understand, collecting cards and trading them with other collectors was a big part of this game. He created his first online business based on something that inspired him at the time and engaged his collector play personality.

If working in, or running a business that revolves around our collector play personality isn’t an option, then finding ways to integrate and engage this play personality in our work is going to help. Obviously, having images or some items of whatever we collect around our workspace will help us connect with this play state, or factoring in some time each day researching or connecting and communicating with fellow collectors will do the same.  The idea is to allow our selves some time each day to access this play state to get in our zone.

The Million Dollar Character Trait Of The Collector

There is a particular aspect of the Collector play personality that is also very beneficial in business if we can translate some of the collector’s skills into our work. Collectors can be quite neurotic when it comes to researching and learning everything there is to know about their chosen “thing”. Neurotic can actually be a massively beneficial character trait in business.

One of my teachers and mentors, Dr. John Demartini is a human behavior specialist, and he has to be one of the most neurotic people I know when it comes to researching and amassing knowledge about what he does. He’s also a billionaire, so it has certainly helped him to be this neurotic about research and learning for his business. This trait needs to be well-managed in personal relationships though.

I remember Yaro telling me how he gets deeply engaged in researching things, like when he was buying his latest car. He set about finding out way more than the average person would, about all the different aspects of the vehicles he was choosing from. This element of dedication to intensely researching things, amassing knowledge and collating information that is part of the Collector play personality means we can really be at the cutting edge of our chosen field if we use this trait in our work. This translates to making a lot more money because we’re way ahead of our competitors.

In finishing, I’d like to draw attention to one of the recurring themes in these articles about creativity. Each of these play personalities has certain traits which can and do make people a lot of money when we find ways to make our work more aligned with the areas we’re naturally playful and creative in life. It’s a very simple factor in our success, but it can be very tricky to integrate into our current life situation. If we’ve got a few years ahead of ourselves to continue working on making this a reality, then it’s well worth the effort. The successful people I have mentioned in this article didn’t become millionaires or billionaires overnight, but they certainly made it happen through consistent dedication to making their creative play into their vocation.

Many thanks for reading, and please drop me a line at the end if you have any comments or insights to share.

Cheers, Neroli.

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