How to Never Run Out of Ideas: 4 Principles to Be More Creative

Last night, I was talking with my sister Jill, who has been a digital entrepreneur for more than a decade. Jill helps trainers and coaches build online businesses from scratch, and we were talking about how difficult it can be for beginners to create content consistently online.

For instance, my first podcast took four hours to record. It took so much time and energy that all I could do was get horizontal on the couch and eat lasagna off my chest (just playin… sort of.. 😳).

That podcast is 16-minutes long.. it's horrible… and nobody listened (not even my mom).

Being creative and churning out ideas is hard, so most people end up quitting. Jill was talking about the mental "switch" a lot of her successful clients go through, where they officially move from being a "consumer" to a "creator." In other words, they go from spending most of their time scrolling for new appetizer recipes to creating their own buffalo chicken dip and sharing it with the world.

Jill told me, "At some point, you have to adopt the lifestyle and mindset of a creator. At this point, it's harder for me to not post in a day than it is to create a post."

But being a “creator” isn't limited to those of us tinkering on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/djcoley/). Being able to churn out ideas in any type of work is beneficial. Those who are more creative and come up with the most ideas at work are more innovative, collaborative, and resilient and typically enjoy their work more. It leaks into our personal lives, too. Being creative in my marriage gives me that Rico Suave spice. I'll leave it at that. It's a family-friendly newsletter. 

And it isn't limited to the chosen among us. In their book Creative Confidence, Tom and David Kelley write, "Creativity isn't a rare talent that only a few possess; it's a mindset that anyone can adopt."

But how? How can we develop more and better ideas?

James Webb Young, an American advertiser, professor, and author of the bestselling book A Technique for Producing Ideas, believed that ideas could be churned out like a 1925 Ford Model T. He wrote, "… the production of ideas, too, runs on an assembly line; that in this production the mind follows an operative technique which can be learned and controlled."

Sure, my sister is a freak (and I let her know she is) and incredibly talented at what she does. But we can all learn to be more creative and develop more quality ideas. I'm happy to announce I can now record a 20-minute podcast in… 20 minutes!

We just need better systems and frameworks to curate ideas. 

As Young wrote, "What is most valuable to know is not where to look for a particular idea but how to train the mind in the method by which all ideas are produced; and how to grasp the principles which are at the source of all ideas." 

So today, we're discussing the four principles by which ideas are produced. Below are some ways to become more creative and avoid finding yourself staring up at the ceiling with a lasagna on your chest after delivering one measly idea.

Principle 1: Become a Storyteller

In one of the darkest days of a Los Angeles man’s life, he learned that his three-year-old grandson was going to die. His daughter’s boyfriend horrendously beat the small child, and his grandson was to be taken off of life support at 9pm.  

The man wanted to fly to Denver to see his grandson one last time. As he rushed to the airport, his wife called Southwest Airlines in hopes of getting him a last-minute flight and explained the situation to the Southwest employee.

Unfortunately, traffic en route to LAX caused the man to be late. When he approached the gate 12 minutes after the scheduled departure, he found the pilot awaiting his arrival. The pilot looked at him and said, “They can’t go anywhere without me, and I wasn’t going anywhere without you. Now relax. We’ll get you there. And again, I’m so sorry.”

That’s the power of story. Stories allow us to show what we stand for and how our ideas can help people rather than telling them how great we are. Southwest didn’t tell us they had excellent customer service or that they are a team of caring people. We connect those dots from the narrative.

Businesses and politicians use stories all the time to come up with marketing ideas and messages.

We can do this in our personal lives, too.

Stories inherently contain meaning. Therefore, if we can get better at noticing and capturing the stories in our lives, we’ll be able to communicate messages, connect seemingly unrelated things, and capture ideas through our daily activities.

Stories come up all the time in everyday life. My two most popular LinkedIn posts to date were about drinking champagne with my family and getting waxed by an older gentleman in chess. There were no insightful takeaways, no big ideas, just champagne and checkmate.

Capture the stories where you have a unique insight, stories of personal failures or mistakes, stories about connecting with other human beings. Your accomplishments, experiences, and observations are potential ideas to share in your social posts, PowerPoint slides, and brainstorming sessions.

People don’t want more facts and figures. They want to connect with you and your work; there is no more powerful way to do that than through a story.

Become a storyteller by noticing all the events that occur every day and sharing them with people. When we make it a practice to scan our environment for stories to share, our well of ideas will never run dry.

Principle 2: Capture & Connect Everything 

“An idea is nothing more or less than a new combination of old elements.” - Vilfredo Pareto, Itailian Economist

In 2008 (a decade before Instagram had 2 billion users and daily podcast listeners had 500,000+ shows to choose from), Americans consumed 10,845 trillion words.

Information is everywhere, yet coming up with great ideas is still a challenging task. Why?

It’s because ideas don’t come from information alone, but from building connections and relationships between different pieces of information.

Author and Entrepreneur James Clear has a brilliant definition of creativity. He defines the creative process as “the act of making new connections between old ideas or recognizing relationships between concepts. Creative thinking is not about generating something new from a blank slate, but rather about taking what is already present and combining those bits and pieces in a way that has not been done previously.”

Meaning, ideas can come from anywhere. When you can connect information you learn in one area to your business, health, and relationships, you’ll have an endless stream of ideas.

Here’s how: 

1. Capture The Information

The first step is to ensure that you are capturing enriching information.

Of those trillions of words Americans consume, a majority comes from sources like the news or ESPN.

Begin separating yourself from the majority. Live in a curious way and become fascinated with a wide variety of topics. The more you learn, to wider your reservoir of ideas becomes.

Then capture that information. Write everything down. It doesn’t matter if you use a physical notebook or a digital system like Evernote or Google Drive.

2. Connect The Information

Now that you’re capturing all these new and interesting things, it’s time to connect them back to your business and life.

When you learn something new, make it a practice of relating it to things you already know. Can you take lessons from NFL franchises to improve your brand loyalty? Are there lessons in how Harvard runs their classrooms to improve how you run your meetings?

Even better, how can connect information to your audience’s world? Can you describe your product and service with a dating metaphor? Can you teach how the metabolism works similarly to a city?

When thinking in connections and relationships becomes a habit, you’ll be struck by new ideas on a daily basis. Anything you consume becomes a spring box for new content, and then all you have to do is share it.

3. Share it.

Share these lessons and insights with others. Share conventional wisdom in new ways. Take age-old industry concepts and flip them on their head. Your audience will find your novelty refreshing and your competitors will be seen as old school and dry.

The best part is that the more we share, the more feedback we get. By paying attention to your audience's behavior, you can continue to refine and improve our ideas. What articles do they share with their friends? What comments do they leave on your posts? Which ideas do they consume? Which do they ignore?

For some, this step may be the most difficult. Sometimes in business and life, the problem isn’t the idea, it’s the execution. And for that, we need a process.

Principle 3: Create a Process

Author Stephen King has sold more than 350 million copies of his 50 plus novels. Is King a creative genius? For sure. However, we can all learn something from his creative process to help ourselves create content over the course of our careers too. King’s secret? Routine.

Around 8am every morning King is at his desk, with a glass of water, and his papers arranged in the exact same way. Just like a bedtime routine, King does the same thing every day to prepare his mind to create. He says, “The cumulative purpose of doing these things the same way every day seems to be a way of saying to the mind, you’re going to be dreaming soon.”

Business and life are busy. And creative work can take a big energy at output at first (see: lasagna on chest). Even those of us with the best intentions can end up putting our creative work on the back burner. That’s why most blogs haven’t been updated in years and are sitting out there collecting digital dust. Waiting to write an article until you have time or are feeling inspired is a plan for failure.

What your actual process consists of is less important than actually having one. It doesn’t matter if it’s a weekly or daily process. It doesn’t matter if you have a cold glass of water like King or you’re wearing your favorite pair of socks. What does matter is:

• What will you do?

• When will you do it?

• Where will you be?

In one study, researchers asked three groups of people to exercise one time, for 20-minutes over the course of the next week.

The first group was only given the above instructions. They were told what to do, and less than a third of these people complied.

The second group was given the same request, but were given some reasons why exercise is good for you, and about 39% of them exercised.

The third was given a specific day, time, and location to exercise, and 91% of them achieved the exercise goal.

As I write this, I sit in my favorite coffee shop in Austin (shoutout to Stouthouse) at 7am as I do with all my writing.

When we lay out what we’ll do, when and where we’ll do it, our chances for success skyrocket, and we separate ourselves from our competition with the most potent differentiator of all: consistency.

What is your process for coming up with creative ideas?

A sample week might look like this:

• Monday, 9-10am, desk: Research and outline this week’s ideas

• Tuesday, 7-8am, Stouthouse: Write

• Wednesday, 9-10am, desk: Edit and publish article

• Thursday, 9-9:30am, desk: Queue up article to go out on Friday

• Friday, 3:15pm, horizontal on couch: lasagna on chest

Write yours down, and practice sticking to it, and watch as creativity becomes as routine as brushing your teeth. 

Principle 4: Be Helpful

As legend has it, at every meeting with the executive team at Amazon, led by CEO Jeff Bezos, sits an empty chair to represent the person that isn’t in the room: Amazon’s customer.

The empty chair is a reminder to filter all ideas through what is best for their customers. It’s a way to change the team’s paradigm. If they are not actively thinking about the customer, ideas may be centered around their ideas, wants, and needs, rather than the customers.

As humans, it’s natural to get bogged down in our own minds. We filter things through our own world. But from an idea creation standpoint, we too need to change our paradigm.

In work, your idea output isn’t necessarily for you, it’s for your audience or customers. When I’m really in my Rico Suave era, my date night ideas aren’t for me.. they’re for my lady (who, by the way, came on my podcast to discuss the 10 Relationship Lessons from the Past 10 Years Together).

When we shift our perspective from “What’s a good idea to me?” to “What is helpful for my people?” ideas come much easier.

If you listen carefully, people will help you never run out of ideas. What are their wants and needs? What are they struggling with? When, in conversation, do you hear people start a sentence with, “I wish…”? Pay attention to these moments. People love to tell you what they need help with.

And then your job is to simply ask yourself, “How can I help?”

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In today’s world, creativity isn’t just a nice-to-have like bringing a plus one to a wedding – it’s a must-have. Of the approximately 132 million full time workers, about 76% are “knowledge workers” — people who think for a living. Building our creativity muscle increases our motivation and engagement, allows us to play well with others, and makes us more adaptable in a fast-changing world.

Adopt these principles to flex that muscle. When you change your worldview to scan for stories, concepts to connect, and opportunities to help others, and put those ideas into action with a consistent process, you’ll never run out of ideas again. Or at the very least, you’ll be able to finish a 20-minute podcast in 20-minutes and keep a scorching hot lasagna off your chest.