The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. -Einstein
The biggest misconception about creativity is that it involves a moment of magical creation when the incredible appears out of thin air. The truth is less romantic. Everything comes from somewhere. All ideas have been thought before and all artists, especially the most brilliant, have their sources of inspiration. I’m going to break Einstein’s famous rule by revealing some of my sources and explaining how I use the genius of others to further my own ambitions.
Everyone starts somewhere so I might as well come clean from the beginning. Before I started this website my creative credentials were nonexistent. I had no tangible experience as a writer, designer, marketer, or entrepreneur. Aside from this site I still don’t. All I can say for myself is that I read voraciously and draw fairly well. You’d think a chump like me wouldn’t stand a chance in the hyper competitive online world.
So how did I end up with this fine looking site, a readership that’s growing every day, and over 100 original articles, several of which have been featured on the likes of Lifehacker.com, Problogger.net, lifehack.org and all the major social sites?
By observing how others became creatively successful and combining their genius with my own.
A seed was planted the day I read Steve Pavlina’s, 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job. Through that article I found How to Make Money From Your Blog and ever since I’ve been obsessed with creating a profitable website based on my own original writing. It wasn’t Steve’s monetary success that inspired me, it was his literary style. The wit, the humor, the brutal honesty, and the fact that people were eating it up and begging for more made me believe that I could do it too; that I could build a business around my passion.
From Steve I learned the value of lengthy original articles, serving the reader, writing from personal experience, and choosing topics that apply to everyone. More than through his words, I’ve learned from observation; from the locations of his ads, the frequency of his posts, and a thousand other details the casual reader would never notice.
Sure, I could have ignored everything that worked for Steve, but what would be the point of that? Too many people try to reinvent the wheel when a Ferrari’s roaring past. During the Renaissance apprentice artists learned by replicating the works of the masters. The secret to being creative is recognizing the genius of others and re-purposing it for your own ends.
If you want be more creative, you have to learn from people who are smarter than you are. Unless you can find a mentor this means learning from observation. When you see a piece of work you admire, dissect it scientifically and discover exactly what makes it great. Is it the tone of an article? the subject matter? the author’s personality? its usefulness? The same concept applies to design. What creates that feeling of visual pleasure? What made you click that ad? What made you subscribe? The clues to creativity are everywhere. You need to gather them and apply that understanding to your own creative work.
It’s also important to find models that fit your profile. If you’re a nobody like me, don’t try to build the next TechCrunch. It won’t work because you don’t have Mike Arrington’s insider connections. Think of yourself as an engine in need of a body. You can find one that fits by investigating people with a background and style similar to yours.
It’s important to note that collecting inspiration is distinctly different than plagiarism. Although Steve’s work has influenced mine I haven’t stolen any of his content. I’ve taken the model and adjusted it to my own needs, the same way Steve probably followed the examples of other successful people when building his site.
In truth, he’s only one of many influences. If I had to list them all this post would be 100,000 words. Some of the more prominent dead ones include Bertrand Russell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Henry David Thoreau, and George Orwell. Some living ones you may know include Jason Kottke, Merlin Mann, Brian Clark, Robert Scoble, Darren Rowse, Seth Godin, Hugh MacLeod, J.D. Roth, and Tim Ferriss. But only naming a select few neglects countless others. I draw inspiration from everything I read and everyone I come in contact with.
I need to give an extra special thanks to Chris Pearson for designing the Cutline Theme. When I started this site I didn’t know any CSS or HTML. Like any beginner I downloaded the best free theme I could find. Over time I’ve continuously built on it, doing at least 3 major overhauls and making small changes on a daily basis. The key to making a good design if you have no experience is looking at other sites, finding what works, and blending it into a unique creation.
All art is imitation. The most creative people imitate rarer, more brilliant sources and cover their tracks. That’s why reading nothing but blogs makes you write dull generic posts. If you absorb a mediocre style, your output will be mediocre. If you scour the classics for the most intelligent, passionate writing in existence your own inspiration will follow. Pay close attention and you’ll even notice the passing of ideas through history. No one could read this essay by Oscar Wilde and Plato’s Symposium without noting a remarkable similarity.
There’s a reason great artists are always clustered together, both geographically and chronologically. Interacting with creative individuals makes you more creative. Rival artists exchange techniques and competition increases effort. The present is the ideal age for creative people. The internet has connected everything, allowing us to draw inspiration from classic works of art and our finest contemporaries without leaving the couch.
It’s also important to draw from a wide array of sources. Your best option is to play the statistics. Creativity isn’t a spark it’s a boiling pot. Sample an enormous amount of creative work and you’ll produce an inspirational concoction. The most important creative asset is curiosity.
Genuine creativity doesn’t exist, particularly in a cosmic sense. Living beings don’t create life, they re-purpose existing matter into offspring. Nothing has been created since the Big Bang. All we can do is rearrange the stuff we find around us. If you want to be more creative, stop waiting for inspiration and start experimenting. Creativity isn’t creation at all, it’s reorganization.
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Wonderfull writing, again.
I have to agree on this one. As a musician I also have the reaction of observing other music styles, and try to use those influences to make my one music. Everything is - like you said - rearranged.
This text makes me go back to the beginning of everything: the Big Bang. It seems that every kind of ‘culture’ (art, music, …) al goes back to that one moment of creativity. But no one can explain how it all happened.
It reminds me of Eastern philosophy that talks about ‘a great explosion of energy with information. After the explosion, the energy spreads out, and we get the energy to have a culture’.
Sorry for my bad english.
I couldn’t agree with you more, John. I always look to different sources for inspiration, nature, music, graphics, writing, people watching… changing my environment changes my writing, or designing. It’s amazing how much is out there to inspire our creativity if we just take the time to look.
Quincy,
You’re English isn’t bad at all, at least not compared to my French. I’ve also wondered about that one unexplainable instant when music, art, etc. were created. That’s the great mystery of life I suppose and a reason you should never be too cynical about the world.
Well written…
Imitation? No. Influenced? Yes.
John,
Creation through influence, not imitation. Is that another way to say re-organization?
I agree, Steve. There is a big difference between imitation and influence. Imitators are rarely successful because they try to take someone else’s creativity without blending it with their own. Imitation always feels like it’s missing something, like it’s only a shell of the original.
Interesting stuff. I agree with you, there is nothing new under the sun, just new ways to put them together.
I just want to know…what influenced the creation of the Pet Rock? And why in the hell was that thing so popular?
My repurposed matter sure says the darnedest things. Things I don’t think anyone else has ever said before. Pretty good for a recombination of existing genetic material…
Good writing John. I agree with everything except the last paragraph. That paragraph doesn’t sound like you, more like someone else’s words.
I think genuine creativity does exist. Although 95% of the time people just rearrange things, as you say.
What did Mozart rearrange when he created his first piece at the age of five ?
Creativity is creation and it’s also reorganization. And it is so much easier to reorganize than to create
If nothing, you must consider Big Bang as genuine creativity, so it does exist.
Hi John, Very interesting article. I enjoyed it, though I have to disagree with the last paragraph. While it may be possible to say no *matter* has been created since the Big Bang, that doesn’t necessarily mean nothing at all has been created since that point. Is an idea considered “matter”? Is the manifestation of an idea always considered “matter”? For example, is a poem considered “matter”? The paper it’s written on…yes. The ink it’s written in…yes. But the concepts and ideas? The particular arrangement of words? I don’t think the notion can be carried that far unless you take scientific reductionism to its fullest extreme and assume everything — including ideas — can eventually be reduced to the smallest bits of matter (particles, strings, or whatever else is being touted by the latest popular theories.
Although what you say is true, isn’t it also true that you learn vasts amounts from observing what doesn’t work?
So you’re saying that everything we do is influenced by other people - the more ‘creative’ other people are the more it reflects upon ourselves?
Where does our own personal experiences or thought processes come into it? This is taking too much of a behaviourist explanation of human behaviour for my liking… I want my free will and the creativity that comes with it back!!!
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Jacki Jinx,
We certainly do learn from our mistakes. I should have emphasized that it’s not possible to learn from observation entirely, you need to starting doing and learn from the results.
Speaking about ‘re-arranging’: I once had a bad dream (literally) - I enjoy listening to music a lot, many different genres etc.
Completely failed at it, can’t read it, no hope. But. There is a limited number of notes, right? Wouldn’t that mean that sooner or later all combinations would have been used? Meaning, there can’t be created any new, original song or music anymore?
It was a bad dream, but the thought keeps recurring - perhaps some musicians out there could clarify it? (it is in a way similar to the saying about the monkeys, the typewriters and Shakespeare - but when I dreamed it, I didn’t know that saying yet :-))
There may in fact be something new under the sun, but there’d be no way to know. Great post, John.
Great article.
You make a valid and strong point regarding creativity. Creativity can’t be done alone without the help of inspiration and we know this based on experience.
You should have gotten Holiday Inn Express to sponsor this post:-)
Great post.
I’ll be reading…
Glenn
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Great post. I believe that in most things that we do we need to have inspiration. We can’t be motivated in doing every task every time. There’s are a lot of factors that affects our willingness to do work.
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Hi. I checked out and read your post because I have started my own blog recently. I have been looking at other blogs for inspiration for content and also to see what other blogs look like. I am definitely at that “making small changes daily” stage with my own blog. Thanks for the insights. Patricia
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I like your statement, “The most important creative asset is curiosity.” I’m finding out that that’s so true from doing research on the “net” — it has helped to awaken my inner-creativity, which was asleep for a while.
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Creativity is culture …… a common sense …. relations … mystery
that what i can feel
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1 night in Paris Hilton exposed lol…
Paris Hilton in the bath! Paris Hilton sex tape video…
I Googled on “secrets of creative people” and discovered this article. THANK YOU. I love your insights; many of your comments I’ll be memorizing to inspire me during those bleak dry dull periods. Needless to say, I’ve bookmarked this page!
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Sam…
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Thanks John, your writing really helped me!
[…] The Secret to Creativity “The biggest misconception about creativity is that it involves a moment of magical creation when the incredible appears out of thin air. The truth is less romantic. Everything comes from somewhere.” […]
[…] The Secret to Creativity “The biggest misconception about creativity is that it involves a moment of magical creation when the incredible appears out of thin air. The truth is less romantic. Everything comes from somewhere.” […]
I’m doing a dissertation at Saybrook Institute about creativity and writing. The best model I’ve found so far is the Flow model. Can you say anything about flow in relationship to “the secrets” of creative people.
Victor wrote a piece about creative flow that might interest you: http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-achieve-the-creative-state-of-flow/