The Art of The Idea

Everyone’s creative beast comes out in different ways at different times.

Einstein was a man who enjoyed monotony and solitude to stimulate creativity while Oprah tunes herself in with long walks and music outdoors...

Beethoven was early to rise to count 60 coffee beans for his morning cup while Winston Churchill stayed in bed until 11am reading the paper and eating breakfast...

Tony Robbins primes himself for work with an ice cold shower and mental exercises while Seth Rogen & Evan Goldberg smoke a certain strain of weed before creative writing sessions...

The point here is that there’s no right or wrong way to be “creative”.

My senior year in college, I was lucky enough to learn from a wildly interesting, Diet Coke drinking, grey hair to the shoulders type of copywriter (Prof. Sheldon if you’re out there... thank you ????). He pointed out a number of things that changed my life and I’m grateful to have his tools in my back pocket to rely on.

If you take one thing away from this article, it should be the concept of The White Bull.

Ernest Hemingway coined the phrase, The White Bull, to refer to a blank piece of paper - the clean page that comes with the intimidating thoughts of “I have nothing, yet I need something great.”

To defeat The Bull, all you need to do is write. It doesn’t have to be complete thoughts or even make sense at the time... just write. Write down vocabulary that relates to what you’re trying to accomplish, search the web for related articles and write down headlines, look at the company website and write down key values, write strengths, write weaknesses, write down even your worst ideas...

The point of this is to get your mind flying in a million different directions. This is your time to “float.” Your just hanging out at the top of the surface and seeing what’s down below... You're not diving in or exerting energy to go after something... just floating peacefully on top and observing/recording.

The more you write, the more connections you can make. In the words of Steve Jobs, “Creativity is just connecting the dots. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel guilty because they didn’t really do it. They just saw something... That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

If I’m ever in need of an idea, I go head to head with The White Bull and I at least come out with new directions and strategies that I can bring back to flesh out with the team. (Tip: Ditch the lined notebook and buy a blank sketchbook if you really want to meet The White Bull.)

In the end, It really doesn’t matter what your routine is... it just matters that you stick to it. It might be some crazy, out of this world, green smoothie filled sequence of events or it could be as simple as arranging your desk in a certain way and putting the right song on in the background (Favorite Song by Chance the Rapper is my ignition right now... thank you Chance ????).

Over time, you’ll prime your body to acknowledge these creative triggers and your life as a problem solver will become slightly less stressful. The challenge of coming up with the right idea is more doable when you have your routine to lean on.

But as we all know, some days things just don’t click. When this happens, I take the advice of Mr. Don Draper... “Just think about it deeply. Then forget it... An idea will jump in your face.”

While your subconscious can make connections that your active mind wouldn’t... there’s also tremendous value in coming back to a project with a fresh look. Don’t take this for granted and remember it's always better to take a break than to burn out.

To all the Idea Machines out there... just keep on writing! ???

Zach Dulla | Idea Machine @ Doola