Six Flowers Rule To Get Success (My own ideas)

I love flowers. Everytime I see flowers, I can’t help myself to take photos of them.

Four days ago, while I was reading six thinking hats of De bono, I got an idea to imitate him. I got an idea to map flowers into the rules that we should obey to get success in our lives.

The following is my idea. I named it “Six Flowers Rule To Get Success”.

Red Tulip (Burning Desire)

Red Tulip represents Burning desire. In my imagination, I think the appearances of those flowers and the way they blossom are like people who will fight all obstacles for their dreams. That’s why I use Red Tulip flower to represent burning desire. The Burning desire is the starting point of all achievement. We must have burning desire to success in life. All of genius have burning desire in their jobs. Majority of people don’t have burning desire. A saying said “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Desire empowers us to draw inspiration from our subconscious mind. It can help us to achieve our objectives. Thomas Edison experienced about ten thousand failures before he invented the light bulb perfectly. His desire to get success never waned. Finally he got the achievement. So, to be a successful person, we must have a burning desire.

Sun Flower (Constructive Thinking)

Sunflower represents constructive thinking. At sunrise, the faces of sunflowers are turned towards the east. Over the course of the day, they move to track the sun from east to west. They always face the Sun. They always try to see the light. So, we also should find the light in everything we see. There’s a saying. “If life gives you lemons, learn to appreciate lemon juice!” I like that saying. We must have constructive thinking. We must take problems as challenges that will enhance our abilities. Constructive thinking is a mental attitude that expects good and favorable results. Constructive attitudes can provide happiness, better health and successful outcomes of every situation.

Rose(protecting myself)

Rose represents protecting myself. Every rose plant has spines to protect themselves from herbivores. We must protect ourselves from everything that can attack us (for eg, from diseases). We must protect ourselves from our enemies. To protect ourselves, we need to improve our weak-points. We need to accept positive criticisms and we must try to improve ourselves by accepting lessons that are given via positive criticisms. But, we need to ignore negative criticisms. If required, we need to respond to negative criticism calmly.

Orchid (flexibility)

Orchid represents flexibility. There are various types of Orchid flowers. Their colors and appearances are different. So, I’d like to choose Orchid flowers to represent flexibility. Nowadays, technology is changing rapidly. And business is changing rapidly, too. To respond dynamically and effectively to rapidly changing business requirements, we need to be flexible. Flexibility is required in many aspects of our life too. Although we should stick on our goals, we should be flexible in our approach. Anthony Ribbons said "If you are truly flexible and go until...there is really very litttle you can't accomplish in your life time.

Forget-me-not (Helping others)

Forget-me-not represents helping others and making ourselves to be useful. If I help my friend and other people, they can’t forget me. When they need help or they need a friend to share things, they will miss me. They will love me and they will be willing to help me. I will get good things back from them. My social network will be wider and I will get more successes in life.

Daisy (Cheerful Heart)

Daisy represents a cheerful heart. Every time I see that flowers, I feel cheerful. That’s why I choose Daisy to represent a cheerful heart. I want to have a good sense of humor. I want to have a cheerful heart. Humor is very helpful to cope with pressures and problems. Humor can ease tensions. With cheerful heart, life can be fun. Life will be an interesting game. And we will be more creative. We will be able to learn effectively. With cheerful hearts, our working environments will be lovely places. We will be able to handle all challenges effectively.

Some may not agreed with my choice of flowers to represent characteristics. Anyway, this method is useful for me. Moreover, we have learned the subject “Creativity and Innovation”. So, just applying other’s techniques is not enough. We should be creative. We should create our own techniques. We must have the desire to create new ideas. Those creations will be exercises for us. Copying other ideas and writing others’ ideas with our own words (paraphrasing) will block our creativity. So, we need to create own ideas.

My creation may be crazy. But, I value all of my creations because I created them by myself. My own creation can show my identity. So, in future, I’ll exercise my mind on by creating new ideas.

Google's nine points of innovation

I came across a good article about innovation tips of Google on businessweek May 17, 2007. Jim Lecinski, managing directore from Google broadcast this finding on second day of Digital Signage Expo 2007 in May. Google's nine points of innovation are as follow:

Idea comes from every where

Google expects everyone to innovate, even the finance team

Share everything you can
Every idea, every project, every deadline - it's all accessible to everyone on the intranet

You're brilliant, we're hiring
Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin approve hires. They favor intelligence over experience


A license to pursue dreams
Employees get a "free" day a week. Half of new launches come from this "20% time"

Innovation, not instant perfection
Google launches early and often in small beta tests, before releasing new features widely

Don't politic, use data
Mayer discourages the use of "I like" in meetings, pushing staffers to use metrics

Creativity loves restraint
Give people a vision, rules about how to get there, and deadlines

Don't kill projects - morph them
There's always a kernel of something good that can be salvaged

When I fell my ideas dry up

When I feel my ideas dry up, I usually do the following things.

Listening to the music
It makes me relax. All of my tensions and stresses melt, while I’m listening music. And most of the songs have good lyrics. So, they can enhance our imagination.

Reading poems
In poems , words are so powerful. Poems can make us to be creative and imaginative.

Going to the new place
When ours’ ideas are drying up, we should walk to the new places. We need to change our environment. That will make us fresh and will enhance our creativity.

Taking a rest
I often take a rest and just forget problems, when I feel my ideas dry up. Taking a rest can make me fresh. If we don’t have enough fun, there is not much room for creativity. Breakthrough ideas usually come when we relax. I often got good idea when I played a sport or took a bath.

Habits of creative people

I love to read biographies of great people. I thought about them again and made a list to be creative. In biographies of very creative people, I noticed that

1. They just do what they love to do (for eg, Einstein just took care of the subjects he loved, and very bad in some subjects.
2. They want to be different. (for eg, Vicient Vangoh always try to be different with others)
3. They just follow their dream (for eg, Right brothers)
4. They do their best in their work(Every genius give too much time and effort to their work, some artists take 7 years to draw famous paintings)
5. They don’t care to the negative criticisms (for eg, Right Brothers)
6. And some use strange methods(for eg, Einstein used to think himself as Isac Newton sometimes while he was thinking)
7. They love their work. (I heard that a saying “love your work as your sweetheart”). But for me, work is not invisible, so, it’s difficult to make my mind according to the saying. That’s why I didn’t become genius. :-D
8. They try hard so much. (for eg, Thomas Edison just sleep 4 hours per a day.)
9. They just see failure as challenge. (for eg, Thomas Edison tried thousand times to invent a bulb)

About Me

My name is Sandar Hlaing. I’m from Myanmar(Burma). I’m a student of National University of Singapore (NUS). My major is Master of Science in Management of Technology. I develop this blog to fulfill the requirement of the subject, MT 5003: Creativity and Innovation. Anyway, when I finish my study in NUS, I’ll continue to develop this blog because I’m very interested in this subject.