Thank You Dr. Shaklee For A New/Old Way To Say It

I am writing this on Labor Day, surrounded by boxes and piles of paper. You see, this will be the last three day week-end that I will spend in this office. My lease ran out and the building owner needs my space to expand and I am being moved to another floor. Early Sunday morning, I crept out of the house, so as not to awaken my wife and came down here to continue sorting almost a decade’s worth of files, memorabilia and general junk. Then, after church yesterday I returned to this enormous undertaking.

One of the problems I have in going through old files, etc. is that I tend to stop and read booklets, my old speeches and notes in order to ascertain what should be tossed and what needs to be kept. I mention this because I ran across an interesting phrase that was quoted by a writer, who in turn was quoting Dr. Forrest Shaklee, Sr., founder of Shaklee Products. Dr. Shaklee was an early pioneer of the multilevel marketing concept and he taught that to be successful, among other things, a person needed to practice what he called “creative thoughtsmanship.”

Since the writer only mentioned it in passing and didn’t elaborate on its exact meaning, that phrase began playing over and over in my mind, finally falling into my subconscious. As I was shaving this morning, I became aware of the fact that my subconscious mind had been working on a definition of its meaning because without warning it shot into my conscious mind.

Once this definition crystallized in my mind, I checked it’s veracity by looking in a dictionary. The word “thoughtsmanship” isn’t in the dictionary, but the word “thought” is. A thought, according to Webster’s New World Dictionary is “the act or process of thinking; the power of reasoning, intellect, imagination.” When we add “man” to “thoughts”, we refer to a person of a specific type (in this case, one who thinks). Adding the suffix “ship” (which means “the quality or state of; having the ability to…”) we define “thoughtsmanship” as being a person capable of thinking, reasoning and processing using intellect and imagination.

To be creative, again according to Mr. Webster means that one is “creating or able to create; (being) productive; imaginative and inventive; stimulating the inventive powers.”

Thus, “creative thoughtsmanship” (at least to me) refers to the act of or process of using our intellect and imagination only in productive, inventive ways of reasoning so as to stimulate our imagination and inventive powers.

It was what some people call an “Ah-ha moment!” And, I plan to incorporate “creative thoughtsmanship” (giving credit of course) into my writings and talks because it is a fresh “new/old” way of expressing concepts that have gone stale with usage.

Yesterday without even knowing it (the definition had not popped into my head at that time), my wife and I applied the power of creative thoughtsmanship to a problem her company encountered with advertising. This year, she is sponsoring The University of Arkansas Razorback football broadcasts in the Tulsa area. The thirty second ads are professionally written and give the name of her company, as well as an easy to remember telephone number. The problem arose from the web address (a critical necessity in today’s technologically driven world). Her address is “resume-source.com”, if a person doesn’t put the dash in, it goes to a competing site. As we discussed various options, the idea came to try to find another domain name and have it automatically link to her site. Since the ads run on the Razorback broadcasts, I tried “hogresumes.com” and discovered it was available.

Rather than being stymied by trying to find ways to get listeners to remember to add the dash in the address, creative thoughtsmanship first led to the idea of getting a simpler domain name to link with her site, then took things a step further by suggesting we find one that would be easy for any true “hog fan” to remember.

I cite this resolution to her difficulty not to show how brilliant we are. I mention it to illustrate how applying creative thinking (as opposed to lackluster thinking) brought about a workable solution to keep from driving web traffic to a competitor.

This same principle can be applied to any difficulty or opportunity that confronts you. All you need to do is first refuse to believe that you can’t deal with it successfully, and next to unleash the creative powers of your mind by deliberately focusing only on innovative, simulating ideas. When you do this, you will become enthused about fresh possibilities that emerge; excited about new potentials on your horizon; energized by the can-do attitude that leads to new heights.
Have A GREAT and Profitable Week!
Robert Hidde bob@confidentliving.com