Creativity Therapy

As I started thinking about the process of being creative and having ideas, I likened it to therapy.  Creativity is something that everyone possesses, but those that feel they don’t have it just haven’t discovered the tools to unlock the hidden potential they have to get great ideas.  The process is very similar to sitting on a therapist’s couch and talking about life’s problems, in that all it takes to be creative is to discover new things about yourself.

That’s what makes finding your own creativity so uncomplicated and even enjoyable.  It’s not about pulling teeth or racking your brain to find ideas.  It’s all about using your strengths, personality, interests, and environment to your advantage to come up with unique ways of solving any problem.

And the best thing about therapy?  It makes you feel better when it’s over.  Becoming creative won’t simply give you the ideas to become successful and solve a problem, but it will give you a great sense of freedom and insight into your own potential to do great things.  That’s why creativity is therapeutic.

Idea vs. Good Idea vs. Genius Idea

My very first post on Chance The Genie was describing what an idea is. I called an idea is the use of anything that exists. This definition doesn’t take into consideration that the idea is a good one or not. I can have an idea, but it has no effectiveness or value to anybody. So I wanted to further clarify the definitions of not only what an idea is, but also a good idea and a genius idea. So here they are, in a nutshell:

• Idea: The use of anything that exists
• Good Idea: The effective use of anything that exits
• Genius Idea: The unique and effective use of anything that exists

An idea should really be solving problems or doing something that’s effective and successful. A good idea solves a problem. Examples of good ideas are things like getting rid of a headache by taking aspirin, increasing sales of your business with advertising, or losing 20 pounds by exercising an hour every day for a month. All of these are ideas that work, and have been proven to work, but are nothing new or unique. Note that what separates a simple Idea from a Good Idea is the effectiveness. If you’ve exercised every day for a month, but have not lost any weight, then you’ve just got an Idea, not a Good Idea. So you won’t know what kind of idea you have until you’ve tested it.

This brings us to the Genius Idea. A Genius Idea is not only a Good Idea, which is effective, but it is also unique. Genius Ideas bring a new, creative, never-been-done before element to solve a problem. Genius Ideas include landmark inventions like the printing press, television, and the automobile, as well as modern concepts like Dell Computer’s direct sales business model and Google’s search engine. These kinds of ideas are not only successful, but change the landscape of how business is done, entertainment is viewed, and life is lived. A Genius Idea changes what is traditional from the old way of thinking to the new.

So what ideas are you coming up with? Are they just and Idea? Or have you got yourself a Good Idea, or maybe even a Genius Idea? If you don’t know, go put your ideas into action, and find out.

What’s Your Impossible Goal?

I know that most of us want to be realistic in our goals in life. But I’ve started subscribing to a different way of thinking. I’ll still make “safe” goals for where I want to be, but my new habit is to have at least one impossible goal that I will strive to achieve at all times. By impossible goal, I mean something that seems so out of reach, but the prospect of meeting your great expectations would outweigh any small goal you’ve ever set.

Why would you make impossible goals? One word: belief. I had earlier wrote that belief is the real idea maker, and believing gives us the motivation and open mind to make the plans needed to solve whatever problem you have. It doesn’t matter if you don’t succeed or not, but it matters that you did everything you could to make your big goal a success.

Let’s say your impossible goal is to make a million dollars in the next 6 months. Hey, you have to believe it can happen to you. Most of us would never entertain the thought of this impossible goal, but you need to try. What will happen is you now have belief, which will give you more motivation to come up with the ideas and resources to work towards your goal. Let’s suppose you didn’t make a million dollars, but only $50,000. Well, you probably well exceeded any small goal you’d ever have. Most of us would give an arm and a leg for 50K in 6 months. But because you set the huge impossible goal, you’ve put your expectations so far outward that even a relative failure is still a success.

So go ahead and make your impossible goal. Set crazy deadlines to make your goal happen. Try and make friends with a celebrity, get engaged in 3 months, or get a six figure job in 30 days. You can still set small goals while you’re working towards the impossible ones, but if you even come close to reaching that great dream, you’ll be glad you thought big.

National Sell To A Telemarketer Day

I recently had a memorable encounter with a telemarketer, of all people.  I think he was getting me to sign up with some protection program for a credit card I had.  After he initially greeted me, I happened to greet him back by asking, “How are you?”  But what struck me about the phone conversation was what he said after this.  He said, “I’m doing fine.  Thanks, nobody has ever asked me that since I started working here, like a week ago.”

That statement actually surprised me.  I know that telemarketers and the like aren’t greeted with the most excited and genial of recipients on the other end of the line, but it still is amazing how quickly we want to get telemarketers off the line.

This realization gave me an idea.  Why don’t we use telemarketers to our advantage?  Instead of giving our objections what they’re selling and hang up the phone as quickly as possible, why couldn’t we use that time to help ourselves?  No, we may not want what they are selling, but they may want what we have to offer.   It would make sense to try and pitch the unsuspecting telemarketers to support your website, product, or service.  If anything, you’ll at least have a voice on the line that you can practice your pitch on.  It shouldn’t be that bad if you mess up - you’re talking to a telemarketer, not a real customer, right?

This tactic of conversing shouldn’t be limited to selling.  Why don’t you just ask them for their opinion on a new product or service you are about to release?  Why can’t you try to poll the telemarketer for important research you’re doing?  Ask them their opinion on something you want to get information on.

Another result of conversing is an obvious one: to be nice and spread some goodwill.  I know we all live busy lives and don’t have time for useless calls, but try starting a short conversation with the telemarketer.  I know this isn’t something you’d normally do, but you’d surely put that person in a good mood, at least for the next 5 minutes until the telemarketer gets rejected by another prospect.

The title of this post is a joke, but maybe there should be a National Day to sell to these workers.  Maybe you’ll never want what they got, but telemarketers will likely never go away.  Use them to your advantage.

An Idea for your Idea

There are so many people who have great, even amazing ideas, but their great product or concept ends up failing once it becomes a reality.  I also constantly hear from people, “I have so many ideas, but don’t know how to put any into action.” Why is this?  I believe it’s because we limit ourselves creatively.  We stop at the first great idea, and don’t realize that more great ideas are needed to become successful.

Think about an inventor who has just invented the greatest product in the world.  He’s so proud of himself for what he’s just created.  He knows in his heart that people would love his little doohickey, and anyone who comes in contact with that invention will automatically fall in love with it.

That’s exactly where most of us go wrong.  Don’t ever assume that your product, service, or invention will be received by everyone, at least without a little creativity.  You can’t expect that someone will get shot by Cupid’s arrow, and never want to part with what you’re offering.  I wish that’s how life could be, but it never is.

Thomas Edison said, “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”  Scrabble took four years to catch on with consumers.  Dr. Seuss was turned down by 24 publishers.  These are just a few examples of how even the most popular and revered products and inventions today were at some point overlooked.

This is also a reason why people are hesitant to put their ideas out in the world - the rejection.  But treat the rejection as another type of brainstorming.  When you first came up with your great idea, you probably went through dozens, even hundreds of bad, silly, and non-effective ideas before the “great” one arrived.  So once your idea is conceived, and you’re ready to put it into action, the idea generation process starts again.  Your goal is to make sure that people see your great idea for what it is.  Maybe it has to be shown to help people.  Maybe people just need to be entertained or comforted by it.  Maybe you just need to find a cool use for your idea that will reach a large audience.  Nevertheless, you need more ideas to execute your original idea.

Creating more ideas every step of the way is something many overlook.  We think that that one idea will carry us through everything, but at some point, you need ideas for how to reach people.  This is why being creative and having ideas needs to cross all subject matters and topics, and must be applied across a broad spectrum of applications.  If you can creatively invent the next generation of electric shavers, and position your shaver as the must have item that wives buy their husbands for Christmas, then you’ve got an idea for your idea.

Learning To Combine

The great thing about creativity and having ideas is that you have the freedom to create something new out of any combination of things.  There is always a new and unique idea that comes from completely unrelated objects or concepts that have never been explored.

For example, what new and interesting ideas can we make out of a hamburger and a fork?  The trick is to see ways we can use the concepts of a hamburger and a fork.  Here are a few:

• Fashion the burger meat to be in the shape of a fork.  Have people eat meals with that “hamburger fork”, then eat that.
• Stick the fork in the bun of the hamburger (so only the tines show), and now the burger is the handle of the fork.
• Slice up the hamburger, put it in salad, and use the fork to eat it.
• enclose the tines with mustard and ketchup, or find a way for the fork’s tines to squirt out mustard and ketchup
• Create a spaghetti meal, only with a hamburger theme.  Make the meatballs enclosed with cheese, ketchup, mustard, and cover it with bread.  And instead of spaghetti, use thin and long slices of potatoes as the “fries”

These are just some quick ideas that come to mind.  Some may seem a little odd, but they are all ideas that you just don’t see every day to combine a hamburger and fork.

Let’s try out another example.  How can we combine cereal and milk?  Well, that’s easy, right?  That’s combination has been used every single morning by people for years.  But are there any unique ways we can combine them?

• Create a “cereal margarita” for kids.  Pour a glass with milk, and sprinkle the rim of the glass with ground up cereal.
• Milk Soup: Fill a bowl with milk (maybe even with ice cream or sugar), and pour in a bit of cereal.  Could make a great dessert.
• Make an mock “Oreo” dunking party with dolls.  Get tiny containers (shot glasses, bottle caps), fill them with milk, and dunk cereal pieces in the milk. Kids may enjoy it.
• Frozen cereal pops.  Fill an ice tray with cereal and milk (maybe some sugar as well), and freeze them with a toothpick (or fork!).

Again, these ideas may or not work out, but the point is that there are always new and interesting ways to combine things, even if they are things that have been used together in a different way.

So find two or more things to combine.  Combine objects or existing ideas that are totally unrelated to make new things.  Or find a new use for a combination that people always associate with one specific use.  It’s a fun thing to do that will certainly raise your creativity and come up with fun and unique ideas.

Idea Consulting

For those who haven’t noticed the big mug of my mascot, Chance The Genie, at the top of this website, then you don’t know that I’ve started to promote my idea consulting.  I’ve had the operation in place for a while, but I felt like I needed an idea of my own before I’d feel qualified to consult with other businesses and individuals.  Now that FailureFresh has launched, I feel like I at least has some sort of “idea” portfolio.

What I’m offering are new and unique ideas for your business.  And when I say ideas, I plan to make that as general as possible, meaning ideas for your ad campaign, marketing efforts, slogans, business operations, and more.  I certainly don’t plan on taking the place of other professionals who perform these functions, but I do plan to supplement these functions.  Everyone needs ideas, no matter who you are, and it helps to have a fresh perspective throwing creativity around.  That’s where I come in.

The main service I offer is brainstorming and idea generation.  I’ll provide the ideas and ways to execute them, and you can take those results and make those ideas a reality.

If you want more information about me, visit the consulting page, or just contact me.

U.S. presidential line of succession

What’s the chain of command for president after George Bush?  Check out the line of succession.

Always Be Unique

The more ideas I come up with, the more I realize what a great idea is, and what a mundane idea is.  The great ideas are truly unique - they do solve a problem, or have a function that is done in a new way.  Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing new under the sun.  But having a unique angle for an idea is a sure way to get people’s attention.

Whenever you get ideas, think about what’s been done before.  Are you trying to imitate someone else, or are your ideas something that is purely individual for the topic or industry you are in.  If it hasn’t been done before, or if it has rarely been executed before, you’ve got an idea to investigate further.  Simply piggybacking on a past idea is not the way to get people’s attention.  You need a hook - a novel idea to get into the door.

Why You Should Be Proud Of Your Failures

Recently, I asked people on a forum to share their blogging failures. I even shared one of my own failures. As I expected, there was not one response from anyone. I haven’t found out why, but I suspect people didn’t respond because they didn’t want to embarrass themselves by sharing their own mistakes. Maybe they thought it would be looked at as a weakness, I don’t know. But one thing I’ve learned is to not be ashamed of your failures, but celebrate them.

That is the motivation behind my idea for FailureFresh.com. The web site is meant for us to take ownership of the mistakes we’ve made, as if we’re saying, “Yep, I did that wrong, but I’ll be better off for it!”

There are great reasons to not only being proud when you fail, but to share those failures with other people.

Failure shows you’ve gone the distance

Most people have a different definition of failure. For me, failing means you have done absolutely everything you could do to make yourself successful. If you’ve exhausted every option that exists, and you still fail, you can be at peace because you’ve tried your hardest. I have a lot of respect for married couples who go the distance to make sure their marriage succeeds. They’ve tried all the books, counseling, and advice to make things right, and if the marriage still doesn’t work, then that’s that. I’ve noticed there’s a peace about these couples when they decide to divorce. They understand that there was nothing more they could do, and they were happy they tried.

Those of us who haven’t gone the distance, and gave up too soon are usually the ones who become bitter and resentful over their problems. I believe these people haven’t failed, but gave up before they could have the chance to fail. I’ve been in this boat many times. I stopped trying many times simply because one person said, “It can’t be done” or told me “No”. I can think of many businesses and ideas I’ve tried to execute that have been shot down before I gave them a chance. I’m more upset with myself because I know there was more I could have done, but my fear of actual failure prevented me.

To truly be proud of your failure, you need to do everything you can to be successful. And when you do throw in the towel, it will be disappointing, but you’ll be happy that you put in the effort to make it work.

Failure helps you appreciate your success

It’s amazing how much failure and struggle make us that much more satisfied when we finally become successful. I’ve been watching the Australian Open tennis tournament this week, and I’ve noticed the differences in some matches. The players who won easily in a score like 6-0, 6-1, 6-2 are very subdued and low-key after their win. But the ones who grind through a long five set win in a score like 4-6, 6-2, 6-3, 2-6, 9-7 are the players who are extremely emotional and excited about their win. This is because they had to work for their outcome. They had a tough opponent that made them work hard and put out all of their effort. When you go through that struggle and come out on top, it feels that much better.

Going through failure is the only way you can truly appreciate your success when it comes. When you achieve your goals and reach your wildest dreams, you’ll certainly remember the times you’ve stumbled and fallen to get to where you are now. And it will feel so good.

Failure helps you face your fears

I was going to title this section “Failure makes you fearless”, but it doesn’t. When I fail I usually become more afraid to fail the next time, and I’ll give up easily, or not try at all. But the important thing to do is to press on even if you’re afraid. Earlier I said that failure shows you’ve gone the distance. That means you need to go the distance in spite of the fear. Fear keeps us from doing so many things in life, but failure is a sign that you’ve persisted even if you fear the outcome. This means that when we fail, we’re really facing our fears. We’re saying, “I might not reach my goal, I may get hurt, but I’ll still try.”

Failure should motivate and challenge us to learn from our past mistakes and keep moving on. It should never be a cue to give up the next time around. Yes, failing hurts, and the prospect of it happening is scary. But it’s necessary in order to face our fears and overcome them.

Failure is an inspiration and a support for others

I love hearing stories about people who have overcome huge defeats and struggles to achieve great success in their lives. It’s always made me believe I can do the same. I’m a big fan of magazines about entrepreneurs for this reason. You’ll find a multitude of business owners who tell stories of how they struggled through bankruptcy, lack of clients, and dozens of people saying no. But today they are multi-million dollar companies with devoted customers. I can’t get enough of these stories because it keeps me inspired to continue reaching for higher goals. My failures will eventually give me an inspiring story to tell.

Other times I hear a story of someone who is currently going through the exact same failure I am. It’s great to know that there’s someone out there who is going through the same struggles you are. Of course I’m not happy someone else is struggling, but it’s nice reminder that you’re not the only one who’s failed in life. One of the cool things about people who have gone through the same things is that a support system comes into place, which serves to help everyone involved. This is how I’ve made many new friendships and contacts with people who’ve shared my personal and career failures.

One thing I’ve learned is that people respond to honesty. They appreciate when someone is being genuine about themselves, and has the courage to share something that others would be ashamed or humiliated to reveal publicly. There’s certainly nothing more honest than admitting how you’ve failed.

Celebrate Your Failure

Admitting my past failures, and the ones I’ll make in the future has actually set me free. I really do feel as if I have permission to go the distance with my ideas and the things I want in life. If you want to do the same, head over to FailureFresh.com and submit your failure. You’re free to remain anonymous or cryptic with your failure if you’d like, if you don’t want everyone knowing your business. But I’d recommend using your real name. Either way, sharing your struggles means you’re taking ownership of your failures, and that’s one step closer to success. And who knows, your failure may just be an inspiration for someone else.

Be proud and celebrate failure!