Generators of Support

The Social Dimension

Prior to this point, not much has happened externally. You have released energies for your challenge (RsH-G1). And you have involved yourself mentally in ways that allow you to feel confident (RsH-G2) about the way forward. However, there has been no focus on the many activities that you must launch and sustain if your project is to succeed.

All creative activities are social. Progress normally depends on your willingness to do otherwise disliked tasks, and a readiness of others to assist in minor and major ways. As long as you proceed shrewdly, your enthusiasm-RG3 will encourage others to put in their time, ideas, resources or efforts for your project. To participate, they also need to feel enthusiastic, at least temporarily. Fortunately, genuine enthusiasm is infectious. There is a virtuous circle: their enthusiasm, even with limited involvement, feeds back to sustain yours.

There are 5 generators of support as shown in this Table.

Group	Use of Enthusiasm	Type of Support
RG35	To Activate	Transpersonal
RG34	To Appreciate	Interpersonal
RG33	To Share	Intrapersonal
RG32	To Interest	Contributory
RG31	To Engage	Functional

More details of focusing enthusiasm emerge from the internal structure of each Triad. Support needs to be provided as follows:

g3:	Top internal Level	Handle yourself and others shrewdly: i.e. your enthusiasm must focus to suit your effort & the situation.
g2:	Middle internal Level	Handle yourself and others sensibly: i.e. your enthusiasm must be intelligible and reasonable.
g1:	Lowest internal Level	Handle yourself and others meaningfully i.e. your enthusiasm must have relevance and significance.

Depending on the challenge and the moment, the focus for enthusiasm may be on yourself or on someone else. Certainly, at different times, you need to activateyourself, appreciateyourself, share your experiences with yourself, interestyourself and engageyourself.

The Five Generators

Activation: RG3⁵

You must activate yourself and become energized with an intense desire to proceed in whatever manner is possible. Your own visible enthusiasm-based activation carries weight. Others will be able to experience it directly via a spontaneous identification with you. If you can also activate others in relation to your project, which is never easy, you can build a network who will endorse what you are doing, and back you in public.

Shows of enthusiasm may be suppressed in business circles, either as part of maintaining a rational orientation, or establishing a stronger negotiating position.

To activate: you must meaningfully explain the project (RL5:g1), sensibly identify core ideals or goals (RL6:g2) and be willing (RL7:g3) shrewdly to do some things and avoid others.

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g2: The focus of activation is the value-RL6 of your project.  You must be clear about the values and goals that confirm unequivocally just how sensible your project is.

g1: To create the necessary energy, you must meaningfullyaffirm and re-affirm-RL5 key features and qualities of your project. Produce documents or slides or stories: these are obviously needed for others, but they are also important for yourself.

g3: Finally, your willingness-RL7 to work hard at the challenge and anything to do with it must be shrewd. If you are crudely realistic, others may well be put off. Alternatively you may be tempted to avoid too many tough issues. You must not set yourself up for later exhaustion or disappointment. So you have to judge your time, resources, talents, past experiences, positions taken by others, &/or social factors in working out precisely how, where and when to be willing.

Appreciation: RG3⁴

From time to time, you have to appreciate yourself. It is essential to recognize an achievement, even a small one, as this supports your continuing efforts. If you can appreciate others, even someone only peripherally involved, then you enable reciprocal recognition that boosts self-esteem further. In a group, enthusiastic appreciation maintains morale and fosters mutual encouragement and assistance. A powerful clique may then gather around your project.

Imagining that you are self-sufficient and multi-talented will lead you to neglect others and suffer accordingly.

To appreciate: you must meaningfully experience the importance of a specific person (RL4:g1), affirm this to that personin a sensible way (RL5:g2), and shrewdly select values and goals (RL6:g3). This person must be yourself, and it can and should be others too.

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g2: The focus in appreciation is communicating intensely-RL5 but sensibly about whatever has been contributed. Any self-aggrandisement or flattery is a power-play that is antithetical to the creative process.

g1: To appreciatemeaningfully, you must maintain and heighten your inner sense-RL4 of your own importance, and the importance of others. If dealing with another, do not let fears of dependency or being exploited stop you thinking and saying things like: "I couldn't do it without you."

g3: You must identify values and goals-RL6shrewdly, so that the appreciation is unambiguously linked to benefit for the creative project and is experienced as genuine.

Sharing: RG3³

Re-playing in your head the highlights of your day or week, whether a triumph or a defeat, is a way to balance yourself and re-charge your enthusiasm. You will find yourself encouraged and energized by imagining various future scenarios. If you can also share your highlights with others in a genuine way, they are likely to offer back thoughts that feed your creativity. Productive friendships can develop around sharing.

Leaving others out in the cold by retiring behind a wall of invulnerability cuts you off from both practical input and the emotional nourishment that friends provide.

To share: you must reflect on meaningful targeted change (RL3:g1), be sensiblein the experiences you activate (RL4:g2), and be shrewd in the way you communicate intensely (RL5:g1).

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g2: When sharing, you must be sensible in developing or re-living an emotional state-RL4. You need to trust yourself or another, and re-visit experiences in a way that suits your challenge.

g1: There are normally many issues and difficulties in defining, pursuing and either achieving or missing your targets for change-RL3. These stages form the natural and meaningful basis for sharing in regard to your project.

g3: You must communicate -RL5 your thoughts and feelings shrewdly. You might identify a highlight of the week that is encouraging, a prediction that has come true, or an event that confirms your friend's views. Sharing should be frequent or infrequent and regular or irregular in accord with your own or the other's position, temperament and preferences.

Interest: RG3²

You must find your challenge interesting or enthusiasm is impossible. Usually interest is natural because the challenge emerges from previous experiences and current ambitions. If you lose interest in your own challenge, then it is dead—or soon will be.

If you can interest others in your project by arousing their curiosity about aspects of the creative effort, then you may get them contributing as well. Ideally, you both discover that your own pre-existing interests and ambitions mesh with the other's. Over time, you can use interest to build a circle of affiliates and associates who will provide valuable information, suggestions and contacts.

Others usually want to see practical results before giving attention. So you may have to work at the challenge for a long time before others show any interest.

To interest: you must meaningfullyfocus inquiry (RL2:g1) into what moves and motivates; sensiblytarget changes (RL3:g2) that are relevant; and shrewdlyintensify inner experiences (RL4:g3) in regard to specific interests.

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g2: To excite curiosity, you must sensibly target a changed state-RL3 which you can bring about, and which has some relevance or significance in the challenge.

g1: Just as you must be sure of your own interest, do not imagine that someone who has the power to help will necessarily do so. To work out whether they will, you must meaningfullyfocus your inquiry-RL2 on their past and current interests, experiences and achievements. That lets you relate these interests to your project.

g3: To foster the desired active interest and its associated enthusiasm, you must be shrewd in intensifying those feelings-RL4 that touch on your own (or the other's) motivations and ambitions.

Engagement: RG3¹

Your engagement with practicalities of the project should be enthusiastic, even if they are mundane or routine. The most tangible and practical form of support from others occurs when they carry responsibility and perform a function within your project. Inducing such engagement may or may not involve payment.

Although a team of competent people sharing goals and aspirations is a powerful force, you must recognize that the transcendental creative input, if not absent, is then partly out of your hands.

To engage: you must meaningfullytake action (RL1:g1), sensiblyfocus inquiry (RL2:g2) on what needs to be done and on what can be done by yourself or another and shrewdlytarget changes in accord with the situation (RL3:g3).

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g2: You must sensiblyfocus inquiries-RL2 in regard to whoever is to be engaged i.e. yourself or another. Your aim is to discover and match:

• preferences, capabilities & constraints, with
• tasks that need skilful and efficient execution.

g1: You will have to take action-RL1meaningfully to arrange your own participation and that of others. Anyone who agrees to join your project must change their schedules and responsibilities, and they usually need some reward or remuneration.

g3:  Any person who puts their time and energy into your project will alter its course regardless of your wishes. So you must shrewdlytarget stages-RL3 that suit your project and that you can deliver. The same rule applies when engaging another: change targets must fit with their abilities, perspectives and personal situation.

Shrewd?  What if you are just a Supporter?

You will be a happy supporter (participator, funder, contributor &c.) of a creative project if, and only if, the enthusiast you are facing is handling you shrewdly. There is no trickery here. You want to be handled shrewdly because you must be looking to participate, or fund, or contribute, or work on a suitable project or no-one would approach you at all. If you are approached, you want it to make sense in your own terms. It won't unless the other person is shrewd enough.

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Next

However much enthusiasm you generate, and however much support you gain, your challenging project needs more. It needs your full personal commitment: even more so if others have become involved. They expect great things of you—and that raises the question of whether you really have what it takes.

• So this next requirement to commit yourself is about releasing all your capabilities.

Originally posted: 31-Jan-2012; Last updated: 10-Jul-2013.