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Storytelling

Stuff ??!!

July 30, 2020 By Marilyn Barefoot Leave a Comment

My father dearly loved and adored George Carlin!!

This routine about STUFF was one of his all-time favourites.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvgN5gCuLac

As my husband and I were literally vacuuming the garage floor last weekend … yup … we did that … I started thinking about how organizing our stuff during the pandemic has made us feel so much better!!

Not only better, but more CREATIVE!!

It turns out it’s really a thing!!

Physical surroundings drastically affect our mood, and our creative thinking.

Statistics say that workplace mess reduces our brain activity, and can negatively affect our work.

Being organized plays a crucial role in creative thinking. It literally allows us to better organize our ideas.

What I didn’t realize until it happened, was that the more our space/the garage was organized and decluttered, the more I thought of things I wanted to do!

Making the space around us clutter free, made space in my mind to create!

When you have less organizing to do in your home, the more physical space you have, but it also opens up space in your mind.

Clearing the physical clutter (including vacuuming the garage floor), also cleared the clutter from my mind.

So what about the idea that creative people are messy??

In the process of making something, there can be chaos, for sure! But for creativity to thrive, I believe the surrounding space needs to be organized for ideas to come to fruition.

A dishevelled environment can halt our creative performance, largely by diminishing our well-being.

Research tells us that people who describe their homes as cluttered exhibit greater depression and fatigue, diminished coping skills, and increased difficulty transitioning from work to home compared to people who view their place of residence more positively.

The problem with being stressed out by a messy environment is that the mess tends to remain in place, thereby leading to constant cortisol production!!!

AND, there’s more!!!!

Another consequence of mess-induced stress is weight gain.

According to several sources, people with unkempt homes are 77% more likely to be overweight than those who reside in organized surroundings.

When you declutter your physical environment, you have more mental bandwidth to make better decisions, set priorities, and create space for new creativity, possibilities, and ideas to come to you.

Do you get more creative in a decluttered space? Have you recently vacuumed your garage floor? J Please let me know!! I would love to hear from you!


Marilyn

Barefoot Brainstorming

If it’s time to ramp up your team’s innovation and collaboration abilities – we can help! Contact us today. 

For brainstorming tips, presentation and storytelling skills, or keynote speaking pointers be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. OR see us in action on YouTube and Instagram!
We would love to hear from you! Leave us a comment down below or tag us on social media.

Around the world in 80 hotel toiletry bottles

July 17, 2020 By Marilyn Barefoot Leave a Comment

Like many, I have been doing my best not to spend money during the pandemic.

This has led to some very interesting behaviour that is reminiscent of being raised by parents who grew up in the great depression.

I never realized how much their behaviour had an impact on me, until we faced our own version of the depression … COVID-19.

I know I’m not the only one who has a collection of toiletries from various hotels. I’ll even get excited to stay at a specific hotel if I really like the brand of toiletries they use. 

From my travels over the years, I’ve amassed many freezer size Ziploc® bags full of stolen hotel toiletries.

Personal and full disclosure … when travelling with colleagues, we loved to play a game we called ‘Raid the Maid’.

The goal was to hit the housekeeping cart parked outside the room while the staff was inside the room working.

Points would be awarded based on the size of the haul you brought back!!

And, if it was a hotel that had those tiny little rubber ducks for the bath … well it was totally game on! Rubber ducks were worth a sh*t ton of points!

So when the pandemic hit and we all went into lockdown, I decided it was the perfect time to save money by working my way through the prized collection. On the first day of saving money in the shower, I sorted them like a kid returning from Trick or Treating!

When I pull out a new bottle, I try and remember what hotel I got it from. Let me tell you, it’s like travelling around the world every time you inhale the scent!

https://barefootbrainstorming.com/blog/tapping-into-the-olfactory-thought-centre-in-brainstorming/

And to my surprise and delight, there are some well-known brands in that bag of raided treasures … like Fresh, L’Occitane, Bliss, Aveda, and C.O. Bigelow. I rationed those because they are just so delicious!!

I understand that for environmental reasons, most hotels have stopped supplying the tiny toiletries, and have moved to large dispensers.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am a huge environmentalist … but I am now increasingly saddened as I place another empty little hotel-sized bottle in my blue recycling bin! It feels like I might never travel ‘there’ again … particularly now!

Of course, Disney being Disney, has solved the problem of people being disappointed about not being able to bring home the toiletries. You can get your Disney fix at home because they now sell them at the hotel gift shops, and from the shopDisney website. The same goes for the Bliss products used at W Hotels.

Really, what’s the fun in that?

There is no skill or points awarded when you buy the stuff!!


Marilyn

Barefoot Brainstorming

If it’s time to ramp up your team’s innovation and collaboration abilities – we can help! Contact us today. 

For brainstorming tips, presentation and storytelling skills, or keynote speaking pointers be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. OR see us in action on YouTube and Instagram!
We would love to hear from you! Leave us a comment down below or tag us on social media.

Storytelling For Inclusion!!

June 10, 2020 By Marilyn Barefoot Leave a Comment

There are few things more gripping than a great story.

Storytelling is part of our make-up, helping to entertain, educate and inspire us.

In business, storytelling is an intrinsic part of our working lives.

We like to hear stories and share them because they give us hope and motivate us.

They also influence our everyday workplace culture.

So why and how does storytelling have such an influence in inclusion?

An organisation’s culture is a culmination of all the stories we hear and share at work every day.

Imagine a story being told in the office about how a colleague who was so excited to be hired that they sent a thank you email to the CEO, and received a delightful email in response.

Storytelling is highly emotional creating either a positive or negative reaction.

The messages they communicate can make or break organisational culture.

There’s no magic formula when it comes to creating a truly diverse and inclusive organisation. It’s about doing a wide range of things in unison. But if there’s one theme that runs through everything we do, its storytelling.

True inclusion means encouraging, hearing and responding to everyone’s story. People want to feel included. They need a sense of acceptance and belonging because of who they are, rather than who the organisation thinks they should be.

Everybody has an inclusion story – even those you might not expect!


Marilyn

Barefoot Brainstorming

If it’s time to ramp up your team’s innovation and collaboration abilities – we can help! Contact us today. 

For brainstorming tips, presentation and storytelling skills, or keynote speaking pointers be sure to follow Barefoot Brainstorming on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. OR see us in action on YouTube and Instagram!
We would love to hear from you! Leave us a comment down below or tag us on social media.

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