Unlocking the full potential of your mind by harnessing every ounce of creativity and brainpower might seem like a tall order. However, you already possess the tools required to do so. This comprehensive guide will delve deeper into actionable techniques and strategies to help you tap into your creative mental energy and channel it into your daily life, transforming yourself for the better.
Understanding Creative Mental Energy
Creative mental energy is the force that fuels innovation, problem-solving, and personal and professional growth. To unlock this power, it's crucial to understand its nature and learn how to nurture it effectively.
The Nature of Creative Mental Energy
Creative mental energy is a blend of cognitive, emotional, and imaginative faculties that enable you to generate new ideas, analyse complex problems, and make intuitive connections between unrelated concepts. Often described as the "spark" that ignites your creative fire, it propels you to think beyond conventional wisdom and explore the unknown.
Harnessing Your Creative Mental Energy
Why:
- Boost problem-solving skills
- Enhance critical and analytical thinking
- Improve mental agility
- Increase empathy and emotional intelligence
- Develop resilience and adaptability
How:
To harness your creative mental energy, it's essential to develop a holistic approach addressing mental, emotional, and physical well-being. The following strategies can help you cultivate a creative mindset and unlock the full potential of your brainpower. There are many strategies for this – I have discussed the important ones below
Cultivate a Growth Mindset
A growth mindset is the belief that your abilities and intelligence can be developed and improved over time through dedication, hard work, and the right strategies. By cultivating a growth mindset, you can unlock your creative mental energy, embrace challenges, and persevere in the face of setbacks, ultimately fostering personal and professional growth.
Why:
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Increased motivation: Believing in your ability to grow and improve fuels your motivation to take on new challenges and strive for mastery in your creative endeavours.
- Enhanced problem-solving skills: A growth mindset encourages you to view obstacles as opportunities for learning and growth, allowing you to approach problems with a more creative and resourceful mindset.
*Greater resilience: With a growth mindset, you are more likely to persevere in the face of setbacks and failures, viewing them as essential stepping stones in your journey towards success.
- More effective collaboration: A growth mindset fosters open-mindedness and humility, enabling you to learn from others, appreciate diverse perspectives, and work effectively in a team.
How:
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Embrace challenges: Seek out new experiences and push yourself beyond your comfort zone. By doing so, you can stimulate your brain, promote neuroplasticity, and enhance your creative potential.
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Reframe failure: Rather than viewing failure as a definitive outcome, see it as a valuable learning opportunity that can inform your future decisions and actions.
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Practice self-compassion: Treat yourself with kindness and understanding, recognising that setbacks and imperfections are natural aspects of the creative process. This approach can alleviate self-imposed pressure and create a more nurturing environment for growth.
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Set realistic, achievable goals: Establish clear objectives for your creative projects and break them down into smaller, manageable steps. This practice can help you maintain momentum, track your progress, and celebrate small victories along the way.
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Seek feedback and learn from others: Embrace constructive criticism and use it as an opportunity to grow and improve. Surround yourself with people who inspire you and can offer diverse perspectives on your creative work.
- Develop a curiosity for learning: Foster a lifelong love for learning by continually seeking out new knowledge, skills, and experiences. This will not only enrich your life but also enhance your creative thinking and problem-solving abilities.
Prioritise Mental Wellness
Your mental well-being is intrinsically linked to your creative mental energy. By prioritising your mental wellness, you create an environment where creativity can flourish.
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Identify stress triggers and develop healthy coping strategies, such as exercise, meditation, or journaling.
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Build a support network of positive, encouraging people.
- Seek professional help if you're struggling with mental health issues.
Engage in Mindfulness Practices
Why:
Mindfulness is the practice of being fully present in the moment, without judgment or distraction. By cultivating mindfulness, you can improve your focus, reduce stress, and create a receptive mental state for creative thinking.
How:
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Set aside time each day for meditation, using guided meditation apps or attending classes.
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Integrate mindfulness into daily activities, such as eating, walking, or cleaning.
- Perform mindful breathing exercises to refocus your energy during stressful moments.
Encourage Creative Thinking
Creative thinking is the ability to generate new, original ideas and approaches to problem-solving. By nurturing your creative thinking skills, you can unlock your creative mental energy, enhance your adaptability, and find innovative solutions to challenges. Here are some strategies and techniques to help you foster creative thinking in your daily life:
Why:
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Enhanced problem-solving abilities: Creative thinking enables you to approach problems from different angles and find novel solutions that may not be immediately apparent.
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Improved adaptability: Creative thinkers are more likely to adapt to new situations and thrive in an ever-changing world.
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Greater self-expression: Creative thinking allows you to explore and express your unique perspective and ideas.
- Increased innovation: Creative thinking drives innovation, leading to the development of new products, services, and approaches.
How:
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Brainstorming: Set aside dedicated time to generate as many ideas as possible without worrying about their feasibility or quality. The purpose of brainstorming is to encourage free-flowing thought and create an environment where unconventional ideas can thrive.
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Mind mapping: Use mind maps to visually represent and organise your thoughts, allowing you to identify patterns, relationships, and connections between seemingly unrelated ideas.
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Lateral thinking: Practice thinking "outside the box" by challenging assumptions, considering alternative perspectives, and seeking novel approaches to problems.
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SCAMPER technique: This acronym stands for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, and Reverse. Use these prompts to encourage creative thinking and help you explore new possibilities for existing ideas or products.
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Creative constraints: Impose limitations on your projects, such as time, resources, or specific requirements. Constraints can spark creativity by forcing you to think more resourcefully and find innovative solutions.
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Divergent and convergent thinking: Divergent thinking involves generating multiple ideas and possibilities, while convergent thinking focuses on narrowing down options and selecting the best solution. Practice both types of thinking to enhance your creative problem-solving abilities.
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Collaborate with others: Engage in group brainstorming sessions or collaborate on projects with people who have diverse perspectives and expertise. This can help you gain new insights, challenge your assumptions, and generate innovative ideas.
- Engage in creative hobbies: Pursue hobbies that promote creative expression, such as painting, writing, music, or dance. These activities can help you relax, recharge your creative mental energy, and foster a more imaginative mindset.
Nurture Your Physical Well-being
Why:
Your physical health plays a crucial role in supporting your creative mental energy. By taking care of your body, you create a strong foundation for mental and emotional well-being.
How:
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Prioritise sleep by establishing a consistent sleep schedule and creating a sleep-conducive environment.
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Engage in regular physical activity, such as jogging, yoga, or swimming, to improve mood, reduce stress, and enhance cognitive function.
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Maintain a balanced diet by incorporating a variety of fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and whole grains into your meals.
- Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water throughout the day and monitoring your intake with a water-tracking app or journal.
Develop a Creative Routine
A creative routine is a structured, consistent approach to engaging in creative pursuits, which allows you to harness your creative mental energy effectively. By developing a creative routine that works for you, you can boost your productivity, enhance your creativity, and foster a sustainable, fulfilling creative life.
Why:
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Increased productivity: A creative routine can help you overcome procrastination and maintain a steady workflow, ultimately enabling you to complete your projects more efficiently.
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Enhanced creativity: Engaging in creative activities regularly can stimulate your imagination, promote neuroplasticity, and encourage the development of new ideas and insights.
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Reduced stress and burnout: Establishing a creative routine can help you maintain a healthy work-life balance, ensuring that you allocate time for both creative pursuits and relaxation.
- Improved self-discipline: A creative routine requires commitment and consistency, which can help you develop self-discipline and maintain momentum in your creative projects.
How:
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Set specific, achievable goals: Establish clear objectives for your creative projects and break them down into smaller, manageable tasks. This can help you track your progress, maintain focus, and create a sense of accomplishment as you complete each task.
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Establish a dedicated workspace: Create a designated area for your creative work that is free from distractions and promotes focus, productivity, and inspiration.
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Schedule regular creative sessions: Allocate specific times in your daily or weekly schedule for creative work, ensuring that you maintain consistency and make steady progress.
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Prioritise self-care and relaxation: Balance your creative routine with activities that promote relaxation and well-being, such as exercise, meditation, or spending time with friends and family.
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Incorporate creative rituals: Develop rituals, such as starting your creative session with a cup of tea or engaging in a brief meditation, to signal to your brain that it's time to shift into a creative mindset.
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Set boundaries and manage expectations: Clearly communicate your creative routine to friends, family, and colleagues, so they understand when you need uninterrupted time for creative work.
- Reflect on your progress: Regularly evaluate your creative routine, considering what is working well and what may need adjustment. This can help you fine-tune your approach and ensure that your routine remains effective and sustainable.
Stimulate Your Brain with Novel Experiences
Why:
New experiences can help you break free from habitual thinking patterns and spark creativity.
How:
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Travel to new destinations or explore unfamiliar neighbourhoods in your city to gain fresh perspectives.
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Try new hobbies or activities, such as learning a musical instrument, taking a dance class, or attending a pottery workshop.
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Attend cultural events, such as art exhibitions, theatre performances, or film festivals, to expose yourself to diverse creative expressions.
- Read widely, encompassing various genres, authors, and perspectives, to broaden your intellectual horizons.
Overcome Creative Blocks
Creative blocks can be frustrating and disheartening, often leaving you feeling stuck and unable to access your creative mental energy. Understanding the common causes of these blocks and learning effective strategies to overcome them is essential for reigniting your creativity and unlocking your full potential.
Why:
There are several factors that may contribute to creative blocks, including:
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Stress: High levels of stress can inhibit creative thinking and make it challenging to focus on your creative pursuits.
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Self-doubt: A lack of confidence in your abilities can create a mental barrier, preventing you from fully exploring your creative potential.
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Burnout: Overworking and neglecting self-care can lead to exhaustion, diminishing your capacity for creative thought.
- Perfectionism: The desire to produce flawless work can cause you to become overly critical, stifling your creativity and hindering progress.
How:
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Freewriting: This technique involves writing continuously for a set period of time, without concern for grammar, punctuation, or logical structure. Freewriting can help bypass your inner critic and encourage the free flow of ideas, potentially leading to new insights and creative breakthroughs.
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Mind mapping: This visual brainstorming technique involves creating a diagram that represents your ideas and their relationships to one another. By exploring the connections between seemingly unrelated concepts, you can unlock new avenues of creative thought and overcome blocks.
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Adopting a "beginner's mind": Embrace a mindset of curiosity and openness, as if you were a beginner with no preconceived notions about your creative abilities or the task at hand. This approach can help you break free from limiting beliefs and view your work from a fresh perspective.
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Setting time limits: Give yourself a specific amount of time to work on a creative project, such as 30 minutes or an hour. This constraint can help you focus on the task at hand and encourage you to make progress, even if it's not perfect.
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Taking breaks and practicing self-care: Prioritise regular breaks and engage in activities that support your well-being, such as exercise, meditation, or spending time with loved ones. A well-rested and balanced mind is more conducive to creative thinking.
- Seeking inspiration from external sources: Explore the work of other creatives, read books, listen to music, or immerse yourself in nature. These experiences can spark new ideas and help you overcome creative blocks.
Using Neuroplasticity in Creative Mental Energy
Neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to change and adapt throughout life, plays a significant role in shaping your creative mental energy. By understanding the principles of neuroplasticity and adopting practices that promote brain health and flexibility, you can enhance your creativity, problem-solving abilities, and overall cognitive function.
Why:
Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's capacity to reorganise itself by forming new neural connections in response to experiences, learning, and injury. This remarkable feature of the brain allows it to adapt to new situations, acquire new skills, and compensate for cognitive decline or damage.
Neuroplasticity is the driving force behind the brain's ability to learn and grow, making it a crucial factor in cultivating creative mental energy. By engaging in activities that promote neuroplasticity, you can strengthen and expand your neural networks, boosting your creative thinking and problem-solving abilities.
How:
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Engage in mental exercises: Challenge your brain with puzzles, riddles, and problem-solving tasks that stimulate multiple areas of the brain. These activities can help build new neural connections and maintain cognitive function.
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Learn new skills: Acquiring new skills, such as a foreign language, a musical instrument, or a craft, pushes your brain to adapt and forge new neural pathways. The more diverse your learning experiences, the more flexible and creative your thinking will become.
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Stay socially connected: Engaging in meaningful social interactions can help improve cognitive function and promote neuroplasticity. Participate in group activities, maintain close relationships, and foster a sense of community to keep your brain healthy and active.
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Practice mindfulness and meditation: Research has shown that mindfulness practices, such as meditation, can help promote neuroplasticity by increasing grey matter density in certain brain regions associated with learning, memory, and emotional regulation.
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Maintain a healthy lifestyle: A balanced diet, regular exercise, and sufficient sleep all contribute to overall brain health and can support neuroplasticity. Prioritise your physical well-being to create a solid foundation for cognitive growth and creative mental energy.
- Embrace novelty and challenge: Seek out new experiences and push yourself outside your comfort zone. By exposing your brain to novel and challenging situations, you can stimulate neuroplasticity and enhance your creative potential.
Using Creative Visualisation
Creative visualisation is a powerful mental technique that involves using your imagination to envision and mentally rehearse desired outcomes. By tapping into the power of creative visualisation, you can enhance your self-confidence, motivation, and problem-solving abilities, ultimately boosting your creative mental energy.
Why:
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Improved self-confidence: Visualising yourself succeeding in your creative endeavours can help build self-belief and reinforce the idea that you are capable of achieving your goals.
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Enhanced motivation: Envisioning the desired outcome can serve as a source of inspiration and motivation, encouraging you to persevere in your creative pursuits.
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Increased problem-solving abilities: By mentally rehearsing various scenarios and exploring potential solutions in your mind, you can strengthen your ability to think creatively and tackle challenges more effectively.
- Emotional regulation: Visualising positive outcomes and experiences can help to cultivate a positive mindset, reducing stress and anxiety related to your creative projects.
How:
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Set aside dedicated time: Establish a regular practice by allocating a specific time each day for creative visualisation, even if it's just for a few minutes.
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Choose a quiet, comfortable space: Find a location where you can relax and focus without distractions, such as a quiet room or a peaceful spot outdoors.
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Use all your senses: As you visualise your desired outcome, engage all your senses—sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell—to create a vivid and immersive mental experience.
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Be specific: The more detailed and specific your visualisation, the more powerful its impact. Envision the precise steps you need to take to achieve your goal and the emotions you will feel once you have accomplished it.
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Combine visualisation with other techniques: To enhance the effectiveness of your creative visualisation practice, consider incorporating techniques such as affirmations, journaling, or meditation.
- Practice regularly: Like any skill, creative visualisation improves with consistent practice. Make it a part of your daily routine to reap the full benefits.
Balancing Creativity and Productivity
Achieving a balance between creative exploration and productivity is essential for personal and professional growth. By learning to manage your time and energy effectively, set realistic expectations, and foster a healthy balance between creative pursuits and other responsibilities, you can harness your creative mental energy without sacrificing efficiency or well-being.
Why:
While creativity is often associated with open-ended exploration and divergent thinking, productivity requires focus, structure, and the ability to meet deadlines. Striking a balance between these seemingly opposing forces can be challenging, but it is essential for optimising your creative mental energy and ensuring your work is both innovative and impactful.
How:
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The Pomodoro Technique: This time-management method involves breaking your work into short, focused intervals (usually 25 minutes) called "Pomodoros," followed by a short break. The Pomodoro Technique can help you maintain focus and productivity while still allowing time for creative exploration.
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Time-blocking: Schedule dedicated blocks of time for specific tasks or creative pursuits. This approach can help you prioritise your work, minimise distractions, and ensure you allocate sufficient time for both creative exploration and focused productivity.
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Goal setting: Establish clear, achievable goals for your creative projects, and break them down into smaller, manageable steps. This practice can help you maintain momentum, track your progress, and balance creative exploration with timely completion of tasks.
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Prioritise self-care and well-being: Ensuring that you maintain a healthy work-life balance is crucial for fostering both creativity and productivity. Make time for exercise, relaxation, and social connections to recharge your creative mental energy and maintain overall well-being.
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Establish routines and rituals: Developing daily or weekly routines that incorporate time for creative pursuits and focused work can help you strike a balance between these two aspects of your life. Rituals, such as beginning your day with meditation or setting aside a specific time for creative brainstorming, can also provide structure and promote consistency.
- Learn to embrace imperfection: Recognise that creativity is an iterative process and that not every idea or project will be perfect. By adopting a growth mindset and valuing progress over perfection, you can alleviate self-imposed pressure and create a more sustainable balance between creativity and productivity.
In Summary
Harnessing your creative mental energy is a lifelong journey requiring commitment, self-awareness, and a willingness to embrace personal growth. By adopting the strategies and actionable steps outlined in this guide, you can unlock the full potential of your brainpower, enhance your creativity, and transform your life in countless positive ways. Remember, the power to create, innovate, and overcome challenges lies within you – all you need to do is tap into it.
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 | Steve Cato is a PhD-level scientist who brings a strong scientific perspective to the study of mind improvement. |
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Set clear, achievable goals: Identify specific objectives related to your creative pursuits, such as completing a painting, writing a short story, or learning a new skill. Tracking your progress towards these goals will help you see your growth over time.
Reflect on your mindset and attitude: Assess how your mindset and attitude towards challenges and setbacks have evolved. If you find yourself more open to new experiences, more resilient in the face of obstacles, and more persistent in pursuing your goals, it's a strong indicator that you're harnessing your creative mental energy effectively.
Evaluate the quality and quantity of your creative output: Keep a record of your creative projects and ideas. Over time, you should notice an increase in the quantity of your output, as well as improvements in the quality and originality of your work.
Remember that progress may not always be linear, and setbacks are a natural part of the process. Be patient with yourself and maintain a growth mindset as you continue to cultivate your creative mental energy.
Encourage a growth mindset among your colleagues: Promote a culture that values learning and development, where team members feel supported in taking on new challenges and learning from mistakes.
Incorporate mindfulness practices into the workplace: Encourage short breaks for mindful breathing exercises or introduce a quiet space for meditation to help employees reduce stress and improve focus.
Foster creative thinking and collaboration: Organise brainstorming sessions, workshops, or team-building activities that stimulate creative thinking and encourage collaboration among team members.
Prioritise mental and physical well-being: Advocate for a healthy work-life balance, and support initiatives that promote physical health, such as offering gym memberships or organising group exercise sessions.
Set realistic, achievable goals: Break down your overarching objectives into smaller, manageable steps to maintain motivation and track your progress.
Develop a routine: Establish a daily or weekly routine that includes dedicated time for creative pursuits and mindfulness practices. Consistency is key to fostering long-term growth.
Find a creative community: Connect with like-minded individuals who share your passion for creativity, either in person or online. Sharing your experiences, challenges, and triumphs with others can provide encouragement and inspiration.
Celebrate your achievements: Acknowledge and reward yourself for the progress you make, no matter how small. This positive reinforcement can help maintain your motivation and commitment to harnessing your creative mental energy.
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