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Whatever time you wake up; don't read first thing in the morning.

"The usefulness of the cup is its emptiness" - Bruce Lee

I am a creative person and my guru is none other than Albert Einstein. I fell in love with his philosophy when I came across a book titled, How to think like Einstein: simple ways to break the rules and discover your hidden genius, by Scott Thorpe a few years ago.

However, prior to reading this book I used to talk to my friends about being different and breaking the rules, which never got a nod from any of them.

Therefore, until then I was convinced that I should follow what others like.

Probably, due to my inclination or fascination towards breaking the rules worked, and I got my hands on this book which made me so excited that I paused reading other books and got glued to it. The more I read about him, the more I loved his philosophy because it coincided with my own values so closely.

Einstein believed that "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

We are what we think most of the times. Our lives are controlled singularly by our minds but not everyone understands that. We share what we feed our minds. That is probably one of the reasons that so much of negativity is spread across the globe. We use all our senses to indulge in such incidents and then we respond in the same manner.

Let's break out of the mindset of doing everything "business as usual" by giving the following some thought:

#1 Don't follow the common school of thoughts all your life
"If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone is thinking" - Haruki Murakami
About a decade ago, I had a habit of buying books, but didn't really have the patience to sit and reading them. Remember the days when you had the energy of a sports person and couldn't sit in one place for too long? You want to play, workout, party hard and stuff like that?
Well, I was inclined towards listening to the Audio books but not too many titles were available on the shelves. Thanks to a friend who introduced me to Torrents. I soon found myself gaining a large collection of Audio books and as such, my car became a mobile library.
Listening to various books tuned my mind differently and I was in awe.
My interest in Audio books brought another turning point. Thanks to a gorgeous friend of mine who is also an avid reader, gifted me a couple of books - the titles of which were not available as Audio books. It helped me get back to reading and my new journey of reading began.
Still, I always applied the philosophy of my guru Einstein and never let my imagination get over-ruled by the thoughts of someone else.
The best part of my creative life is that before I had really grown into reading and learning from what others thought was right, I had already been applying my own mind and doing things differently.
Accordingly, reading always complemented my creativity instead of dominating my mind with the thoughts of someone else.
Therefore, I feel blessed that I could blend my creative mind with the creative mind of the authors and the outcome has always been a unique imagination.
#2 Break the rules and switch your one morning habit
There is one set of people who pick up the newspaper first thing in the morning and begin to feed their minds with the negativity of what's going on in the entire world. Who attacked who, which country attacked the other, who was stabbed from behind or where a woman was raped, for example.
Then, there are others who love to read books on motivation, self-help and business. But whatever you may be reading in the morning, you are actually reading the mind of someone else. You may feel satisfied that you are learning something new, but you don't realize that your mind is already filled up with imagination ready to be explored.
When I stopped reading the newspaper 2 years ago and gifted my TV to my domestic worker about 5 years back; instead of losing, I learned a lot through books. The newspaper and TV added zero value to my life.
But thanks to technology, I am always abreast with what is important for me to learn. It helps me maintain my focus and know only that which is considered necessary. If I ever wish to watch Soccer or Cricket, I would rather go to a bar with friends and enjoy sports. The same applies to watching movies and important news online.
#3 Fill it only after you empty it
Here is the key point. If you feel what I said above makes sense to you, then you would agree with me that you should not initially feed your mind every morning with the thoughts of others.
We've learned that we should first empty something in order to fill up with something new. So why dont we follow this every morning?
Every morning we have a lot of thoughts that our subconscious mind has gathered for us to work on as solutions. You would be amazed if you begin to consider those thoughts first.
You must read. You will get ideas. However, first empty your mind on paper.
Give those 30 to 45 minutes in the morning to your subconscious mind and receive what it has to deliver to you. You may write or punch the keys on your PC, as long as you are working on emptying your mind first.
Once you are done with it, then you may switch to reading and feeding your mind with what others have to say. Keep reading books, but remember that a book is only a book, and you should learn to think for yourself.
-Maxim Gorky
# What should you write about first thing in the morning?
I would suggest not to indulge in any business activity first thing in the morning.
You should write about yourself, gather your thoughts, write a book, think of ideas, write your own stories, write your game plan, write the ways and means you can enhance your life, think of new business ideas, find new gaps in the market, etc. There is so much to do in life, every morning.
In essence, you should involve yourself in any sort of imagination or doing creative exercise.
The idea is to do your brainstorming in the morning and refrain from involving yourself in core business activities.
I wish that I had invested time in writing first thing in the morning instead of reading books first, all these years. However, as they say, "it is never too late to start".
I am glad I found this new way of stretching my mind and collecting all the thoughts my subconscious mind wants me to focus on every morning.
As such, just like the emptying of the cup is vital in order to put more in it, so is the emptying of the mind.
You can get creative only if you break the rules and not follow someone else's thoughts all the time.
Wish you all an awesome morning, full of creativity, new thinking and fulfillment of your dreams. Keep thinking, keep writing and more importantly, keep breaking the rules confidently.
Now that I have emptied my mind, I am going to fill it up with reading.
Parting Note:
Thank you for your time to read this article. Please share your comments below and if you enjoyed reading it, please share it for the benefit of others.
Should you wish to contact me for anything relevant to this topic, you may do so by sending an email to deepak@bananamarketers.com.