130 THE CREATIVE INVESTMENT TEAM
fore, before we leap ahead to a discussion of group creativity, it’s
important to cover the individual aspects of the process. How do
you create safety within yourself? How do you tame the internal
critic that gets its jollies by calling you stupid, denigrating your
work, and tearing apart your best ideas? This topic is tricky be-
cause often the inner critic, like a hidden addiction, is cunning,
baffling, and powerful. It works behind the scenes, quietly under-
mining your confidence and keeping your creativity at bay.
Sadly, many people live their entire lives without realizing this.
It’s like owning a car for 10 years and never knowing that the
parking brake was on the entire time. Your car would have been
so much faster and more efficient if only you had been aware of
the problem and dealt with it! Instead, the car handled poorly and
burned up lots of extra gasoline.
How do we recognize and deal with the inner critic?
Of all the material available for enhancing creativity, one of
the most powerful is a book by two psychologists, Hal Stone and
Sidra Stone, called Embracing Your Inner Critic (HarperCollins
1992). The subtitle is interesting for our purposes: Turning Self-
Criticism into a Creative Asset. Why is the inner critic so harmful?
Here is the list that the Stones call the “Top Twelve Traits of the
Inner Critic.” As you can see, it starts with how damaging the critic
is to creativity and risk-taking:- It constricts your ability to be creative.
- It stops you from taking risks because it makes you fear
failure. - It views your life as a series of mistakes waiting to happen.
- It undermines your courage to change.
- It compares you unfavorably with others and makes you
feel inferior. - It is terrified of being shamed and monitors all your be-
havior to avoid this. - It causes you to suffer from low self-esteem, and possibly
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