STUCK FOR INSPIRATION? DON’T BE!
How do you come up with your creative ideas?
If you’re a small business owner, it can feel like you have to be amazing at everything. It can also feel like you have to constantly be original and creative in order to develop your product or service and market your business to the world. Producing content to support your business can feel like a never-ending hamster wheel, don’t you think?
THERE’S NO SUCH THING AS AN ORIGINAL IDEA
Do you know what I recommend? Stop wracking your brain searching for answers. Steal ideas from other people! Please don’t worry. I’m not talking about plagiarism here. I’m talking about ‘creative influence.’ It’s an idea as old as creativity itself.
In fact, experts argue that there’s actually no such thing as ‘an original idea’ these days – that all ideas come from or are influenced by the information we absorb from around us. So you too, can go forth and do this both consciously and confidently, without feeling guilty.
The trick of course, is to add your own take or spin on things. How do you come up with ‘your spin?’ Guess what? Your Brand Strategy can help with that. It will guide and influence how you use the ideas you’ve borrowed.
Take the time to create an original (if there really is such a thing) strategy that’s unique to your business. Then use this to direct EVERY aspect of your business and you will build a strong brand – even when you’re including elements of other people’s ideas. Your Brand Strategy will also help you instinctively know which are the best ideas for your business to steal!
Save ideas in a file. Bookmark the posts and websites you love. BUY the products that you might one day use as a reference for your own. Curate your own knowledge and experiences to inspire your future creativity. For goodness sake, don’t torture yourself by starting with a completely blank piece of paper…
DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT
I get it. You’ve been told all of your life that stealing is wrong. I’m not going to convince you in just one email that now stealing is perfectly ok, in fact EXPECTED in the creative world. So I’ll leave you to form your own opinion on the subject. While you’re thinking, here’s a TED Talk you should check out. I hope you enjoy it and feel a sense of relief having watched it, that you’ll never have to stare at another blank piece of paper again when you’re tackling a creative task.
Steal Like An Artist: Austin Kleon at TEDxKC – YouTube
I’m more than happy to share my creative ideas with you!
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