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Subject: Creativity is valued, but clichés is what we get most of the time. Can clichés,
then, acquire a new, creative, meaning? Or are we doomed to die of boredom?

MS GANCHEVA, LEADING INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES AND PEOPLE FROM ALL

OVER THE WORLD HAVE MADE BILLIONS WITH CREATIVE IDEAS. WHAT ARE
YOU WAITING FOR, ELENA?!

EVERYONE SAYS THEY WANT SOMETHING NEW, SOMETHING FRESH, SOMETHING

DIFFERENT, SOMETHING CREATIVE. BUT, TOO OFTEN, WE END UP HEARING, SEEING,
AND DOING THE SAME OLD STUFF. AT THE SAME TIME, A HANDFUL OF “GENIUSES” ARE
STUNNING THE WORLD WITH THEIR CREATIVITY AND GROUNDBREAKING IDEAS.

ELENA, ARE WE DOOMED FOR EVER TO BE IMITATING OTHERS? CAN’T WE BE THE ONES
OTHERS ARE LOOKING UP TO AND FOLLOWING?

Dear Elena,

You can sit and patiently wait for the muse of creativity to inspire you. But, in the
meantime, let’s ask a simple question: what is creativity?

Is it the private property of a few geniuses? Can we, “ordinary people”, learn it? Or
should we wait for the muse to inspire us?

The answer, it turns out, is simple. Creativity is like humor. Creativity is humor:

‘Mr Churchill sat down next to Lady Astor at dinner one day. She turned to him
and said, ‘Mr Churchill, if I was married to you I should put poison in your coffee.’
Mr Churchill turned to her and said, ‘Madam, if I was married to you… I should
drink the coffee.’

In this situation, an expectation is generated by the way the information is put together.
Then suddenly this expectation is thwarted, but, at once, one sees that the unexpected
development is another way of putting things together. Humor and insight are
characteristic of the type of information handling system that is the human brain.

The brain as a self-organizing system sets up patterns or sequences or tracks along

which our thinking normally flows. But these tracks have side tracks which we cannot get
to from the main track. It is a sort of one-way system. If “somehow” we can move
“laterally” to one of the side tracks then we can easily find our way back to the starting-
point.

That is the essence of creativity. That is why all valued creative ideas are logical after
you have seen them. That is also the basis for humor. In humor, we are taken to the side
track and immediately see the “way back” or the logic of the humor. (If I was married
to someone who put poison in my coffee, perhaps, I should rid myself of that person.
And drink the coffee.)

The problem, of course, is that hardly anyone can create jokes or be creative logically.
So are we back where we started? Not exactly.

ELENA, BE DELIBERATELY CREATIVE!

In fact, YOU, Elena, and I have never been closer to mastering our own brains and
deliberately being creative. For there are formal, yet simple, tools that help us move
“laterally” and be creative. Those tools are the basis of Edward de Bono’s LATERAL
THINKING.
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Let’s take one of them. It’s called “reversal”.

Remember that we have to “provoke” our brains to move laterally and escape the rigid
patterns of memory to create something new and breathtaking. So we take a simple
statement:

“Buy our new car and then get a 10% discount.”

and reverse it:

“Get a 10% discount and then buy our new car.”

ELENA, YOU CAN BE PAID FOR WHAT YOU DO ANYWAY!

How would that work in practice? Come to our showroom and GET €3,000 IN CASH.
Then sign a contract, get into that sparkling brand-new limo and drive somewhere to
spend your €3,000. And, of course, start paying for your car later – next month, say.

What’s creative about it? We reversed the logic. Ordinarily, you pay to consume our
products. And because, in times of crisis, we need to sell more to meet the budget
targets, you are actually encouraged to buy more (hopefully, in times of crisis, your boss
pays you more, too).

But now imagine the reverse. You walk into our showroom and we pay you to consume
our products. Of course, you might counter, I have to pay for the car, eventually. You are
right, but that’s only if you want to buy it. And since we all have more money in our bank
accounts than cash in our pockets – that’s called “credit” – no-one offers us any cash.
Instead, everyone wants ours.

So being paid to buy is rather creative in times of crisis. And few companies – only
serious ones – can afford to do that. And because cash is dear, we should be careful
when choosing the companies, and their products, in which we invest our money.

That was the “reversal” tool of Edward de Bono’s LATERAL THINKING. AND THERE
ARE MANY MORE.

Of course, you might say that this idea has, actually, been around for some time. And
that, perhaps, it’s too simple to be eye-catching.

And you would not be wrong.

But don’t forget. A few minutes ago, we were wondering: Can we be creative
deliberately? Can we learn, that is, to be creative?

ELENA, CAN YOU LEARN TO BE CREATIVE?

The answer is yes. And no, you should not be surprised if it turns out to be simpler than
it might have seemed at the beginning. After all, if the end of the joke didn’t make sense
to our “logical” minds, we wouldn’t laugh. And if that breathtakingly creative idea wasn’t
simple to apply and use, we wouldn’t be captured by it.

Play for a minute with your beloved touch-screen gadget. What could be more creative,
and simpler, yet – get rid of all those buttons and stuff and make it rest seamlessly in
the palm of your hand?

STOP PAYING OTHERS FOR YOUR OWN CREATIVE IDEAS!

Now let’s get back to reality. Wouldn’t you want to have all those creative ideas
whenever you want to have them? Wouldn’t you want to be the one to impress your
friends? Or to give your boss the ideas to save the business and then prosper? Or, if you
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are the boss, to have the team that churns up all those ideas rather than paying others
who might or might not have heard of Edward de Bono? If they have, you can do it too.
If they haven’t, their “creative” ideas might be a little short of what’s required to be truly
creative, day in and day out.

Your boss wouldn’t mind investing €3,000 for every car worth €30,000 she sells. You
wouldn’t mind if more companies were paying you to buy their goods, rather than
instigating you to “earn” more discounts to boost their bottom line.

Simple as it is, such creativity is needed now, more than ever!

WHY LATERAL THINKING NOW?

Still, you might wonder, why now? Why hasn’t LATERAL THINKING become ubiquitous?

The truth is that good ideas need time to spread and be adopted. And the people who
have the courage to be among the first to act on those ideas reap huge benefits. Lateral
thinking has, in fact, been around since 1970. That’s right – for nearly HALF A CENTURY!

LEADING INTERNATIONAL COMPANIES HAVE MADE BILLIONS WITH CREATIVE

IDEAS. WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR, ELENA?!
IBM, Shell, Ford, Ciba-Geigy (Novartis, today) are just a few companies that have sought
Edward de Bono’s lateral thinking. And now, thanks to all those creatively new
technologies (and some of them are no longer that new), you, too, can have access to a
vast range of creative tools we have specifically prepared for you, so that you can get
more intimately aware of the benefits of creative/lateral thinking:
 Send us an e-mail with one of your creative needs, and we can show you how to
apply the lateral thinking tools to generate the outcome you desire. And since an
e-mail is practically free these days, our creative suggestion to you will be 100%
FREE!
 Visit our office every Wednesday, at 5 pm sharp, and FOR ONE HOUR YOU CAN
LEARN AND PRACTICE SOME OF EDWARD DE BONO’S GROUNDBREAKING
INSIGHTS. What will that cost you? One hour of your time. No more.
 Visit our website and download a few exercises and tips on how to be creative.
Internet already costs close to zero. So your downloads will cost you ZERO, too.

Elena, NOW is not the time to drag your feet!

The world is changing. All it takes is a couple of thousand dollars and a creative idea to
build a social network, for example, with A HALF BILLION FOLLOWERS.

Better yet, free internet and ubiquitous personal computers and touch-screen devices,
coupled with open-source applications, make it possible to create and produce AT
VIRTUALLY NO COST!

Of course, you still need a CREATIVE IDEA.

So visit our website: www.council4newthinking.com. Download our FREE LATERAL
THINKING TUTORIALS. Practice those tools. Play around with your own ideas. Then come
to our office and spend a Wednesday afternoon mastering those “elusive” creative skills.
AT NO COST TO YOU AT ALL.

ELENA, THIS IS THE CLOSEST THAT YOU CAN GET TO A FAIL-SAFE INVESTMENT THESE
DAYS!

With time, knowledge, unlike most other products, doesn’t lose its value. In fact, it gets
more valuable, as it expands and as the number of uses to which it is put grows ever
larger.
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THE MUSE OF CREATIVITY INSPIRED DR EDWARD DE BONO TO CREATE THE TOOLS OF

LATERAL THINKING. And he was named one of the 250 people in all of history who have
contributed most to humanity…

MILLIONS HAVE BENEFITED FROM LATERAL THINKING. WOULDN’T YOU WANT TO BE

ONE OF THEM, ELENA?

“SOFTWARE FOR THE BRAIN”

Now, it’s your turn, Elena, to be inspired and to CREATE YOUR OWN WORLD OF THE
FUTURE TODAY. Don’t hesitate a second: visit our website, download the materials we
have prepared for you – your “software for the brain”, join us at our office, and unleash
your own creativity. The 21st is the century of following and being followed, of things
others create for us and things we share with others. Act now!

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Marlene Smits
marlene@council4newthinking.com
telephone : +359 2 963 12 72

PS. Remember, Elena: free internet, personal computers and open-source applications
have made it possible, for the first time in our history, for all of us to become
creators. ALL YOU NEED IS AN IDEA. But you don’t need to wait for the muse of
creativity. Instead, GIVE YOURSELF “SOFTWARE FOR THE BRAIN”: LEARN LATERAL
THINKING. VISIT WWW.COUNCIL4NEWTHINKING.COM NOW!

PPS. Thinking is the most fundamental human skill. But the ability to create and “design
our way forward” is even more important in the fast-changing world of today! Our ability
to shape and direct change will determine our success and happiness in life. DON’T MISS
THE CHANCE TO HARNESS THE POTENTIAL OF YOUR OWN BRAIN. IT’S YOURS FOR A
LIFETIME. INVEST IN IT AND HAVE FUN! For thinking, and creativity, can be learnt and
can be fun, indeed. JOIN US TO SEE HOW!