In today’s episode, we discuss ways to become more creative.
Full Transcript
Hi Everyone, welcome to the You’re Daily Cup of Joe Podcast, with your host Joe Bautista, where my goal is to give you quick lessons on how to grow yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually so you can have better careers, better relationships, and better personal finances.
I’m also the author of the book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to Get Better Every Day”. In this book, I wrote down over 30 tips to help you grow in those four cornerstones.
In today’s episode we’re going to talk about creativity. I’m a big believer that to be creative you need to live your life like the Pablo Picasso quote, “Good Artist Copy, Great Artist Steal.” There are no new ideas underneath the sun, they are just rewritten to fit today’s culture.
I’ve built Grow With Joe on the basis that I’m using other people’s content to influence my business. I take one idea from one book, another idea from a podcast, and another idea from another book, to create my new idea. I always try to give credit to the person that I got the ideas from but some ideas have been stolen so much that it’s hard to identify where they came from.
When Benjamin Franklin wrote his books, he took a lot of ideas from the past and just updated them for his times and some quotes that are contributed were said before by folks like Confucius. When Benjamin Franklin said, “If you chase two rabbits, you will not catch either one.”
Where Confucius said, “The Man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.”
Very similar but Benjamin Franklin did this with a lot of his quotes.
Another person famous for stealing other people’s work was Steve Jobs. He would look at luxury brands and see what they were doing and he would implement the same designs into his products. Instead of having a CD tray on his computers, he wanted a CD slot like they had in luxury cars. He was taking inspiration from different parts of the world.
I do the same, I watch a video, hear a podcast, or read a book and I try to figure out how I can take those best parts and implement them in my Grow With Joe Business. I’m more of a curator of information than creating something from scratch but it helps me out a lot.
If you quote one source you’re copying somebody else’s work, if you’re quoting many different sources you’re doing research. Just like in school, to create a paper you had to quote different academic papers to write your one paper and I’m just doing the same thing now. This is why I try to read about many different topics because I’m trying to figure out how I combine history lessons with economic topics to create something useful for folks. Or combine my public health degree with economics and history so I can explain something better.
If you’re in a non-profit, look at what the profit sector is doing well and steal their idea to implement in your firm and vice versa. Don’t worry about stealing someone else’s work if it’s research. You’re just using the essence and not doing a word for word copy, then you should be fine. You want to use them as a model for what you’re doing.
If you’re building your website for your business, take a look at what other successful people that are in your field are doing and start modeling them. If the don’t have a logo on top, don’t put a logo on your website for example. If somebody else has a successful social media presence, see what they are doing and do it for yourself. Don’t copy but model.
Model your behavior after successful folks, what they are doing, you should be doing. The reason I make it a goal to read 36 books a year is because that is the average number that a CEO reads a year. And if I’m trying to be a CEO myself, then I have to act like one. If someone that is a success, says to go take improv classes because it will teach how to be a better communicator and you’ll be able to relate to folks more, then I’m going to take improv classes, which I did.
Success leaves a train and you just have to go pick it up. It might not be easy but you a path to reach the top. A standard education will give you standard results and if you want to be extraordinary, then you have to do what extraordinary people do. The title says it all, extraordinary is what everyone else is not doing. It’s probably not going to be comfortable and you will hit obstacles, but if you steal the best methods from various sources, you can make your journey easier.
Running a business is hard work, and I’ve trying to make a successful company for the past four years and I’m not where I want to be but I know if I continue down this path, I will create the future I want. I work a lot and some of it is doing research and some of it is creative work like creating this podcast and writing. I know I have to spend at least four hours of my day on deep work items to help where I need to go. I model this behavior after the book the one thing. Where they say that the human mind can only really work on something for four hours a day before diminishing results to kick in. So in the morning, I tend to do writing and in the afternoon I do my administrative work and recording work because it requires less creative energy.
I stole that routine from that the One Thing by Gary Keller and it has helped me out tremendously. I got a lot of stuff done, finishing my two drafts for my upcoming books in the fall. I’m going to continue to model my behavior after successful people and just make my life better.
One great exercise you should do on a routine basis is to write 10 new ideas every day. When you do this, ask yourself what you can combine with each other to make your life better. And if you find a really good idea, you continue to run with that idea and implement it in your life. It’s like panning for gold, you just got to keep it up and eventually, you can find a gold nugget. I don’t come up with good ideas every day but occasionally I do come up with a good idea and it helps me out. Please, this is a good exercise because when I talk to someone it allows me to think about how something can be applied to their life to help them out.
If they do it is another thing because most people don’t do very well on execution but at least I added some value to the world.
Inspiration for being creative can come from anywhere, a museum, a film, a book, a video game, a podcast, or by talking to someone but you have to be looking for it and be hungry for it. Keep learning and it should help you down the road. Learn like you’re going to live forever.
To summarize today’s episode, remember that good artist copy and great artist steal. Don’t actually steal somebody’s stuff but use their work as a model for what you want to accomplish in life.
Thanks for listening to today’s episode.
To get a free copy of my book “More You Know, More You Grow: How to get better every day” just go to my website growwithjoe.me/book and just pay for shipping and handling.
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Thanks for joining me today and remember if you go with Joe, you can grow with Joe, cause Joe knows Dough.
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