How to Be Creative

I was recently reading a "How To" by Hugh MacLeod (the founder of gapingvoid) and it occurred to me that I also have a short list that I have learned about creativity, and I will share it below (some Hugh & I share BTW). My list follows:

How to be creative my Hugh MacLeod

1: Do Not Listen to Naysayers
2. Surround yourself with free thinkers
3. Make lots of mistakes (this is real creativity)
4. Practice, Practice.. see #3
5. Sing in your own voice (do what YOU want to)
6. Make your OWN mistakes
7. Do NOT think of what cannot be done...just do it
8. Focus on the art
9. Do exceptional work for the few who will appreciate it
10. Put all your heart into it.
11. Make sure what you are doing is really different (no copies)
12. Be original..rather than a poor copy of someone else
13. Realize that what you are doing is a gift..you may get nothing for it, but do it anyway

Sorry, that is it...short and sweet...just do it...there is no 2nd place for doing 1st rate work...<3

Comments

The Moldy Middle

While taking statistics during my quest to get an MBA and while earning my engineering degree, the professors always emphasized the importance of finding the statistical mean of any population by using the Central Mean Theorem (a.k.a the highest point of the Bell Curve). As an engineer, this was essential in order to maximize throughput, minimize cost and waste, and ultimately make a better, faster, cheaper widget. A funny thing happened on the way to the dark side of marketing. I discovered that the only thing in the middle of the road was quite literally dead road kill. I do not know if you remember stores like Bradlees, Ames and Service Merchandise (just to name a few), but they all folded because the environment changed and they were caught trying to service the mythological “average customer.” Part of that change came when Wal-Mart began its juggernaut with the discount department store. Wal-Mart did two things right: 1) Focused on “mobile” consumers, and 2) Fo

The Rush to Bottom

I cannot take credit for these words of wisdom, and sadly I do not know who wrote it originally. So, I cannot acknowledge them by name but I can acknowledge their exceptional talent to get a message across with clarity and hard-hitting truths. Whomever this author is, I thank and admire you and take pleasure in sharing this with others! I have also included a video if anyone is interested in sharing it. “When the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great...but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.” An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer. The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on socialism. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one wi

How Much is Enough?

I have been thinking about integrity and honesty, and frankly should humanity even continue, but that is another thread. In my thinking, I keep coming back to the same question: How much or little cheating is enough? Or stated another way? How much of a lie makes you a liar? How much cheating do you have to do to be a cheater? How much do you need to steal for you to be considered a thief? How much infidelity do you need to be considered an adulterer? How much fraud to you need to commit for it to be criminal? How much of the truth needs to be changed for it to be untrue? How much shit exactly, does something need to have to be considered a shit sandwich? How dead must a person be to be considered murdered? How pregnant do you have to be to be considered pregnant? OK, the last two were off topic but the answer is “any”.. Any amount of lying makes you a liar. Any amount of cheating makes you a cheater. Any amount of stealing makes you a thief. Any amount of infidelity makes you an adult

The Profit Prophet

Search This Blog