In his latest book, Show Your Work!, Austin Kleon suggests ten different ways that almost anyone can think more creatively and thereby attract not only attention but gain support for the given initiative. Here they are, each accompanied by my annotation.
1. You don’t have to be a genius: Brian Eno coined the term “scenious” when describing individuals who create an “ecology of talent.” Most of the time (not always), people of average talent who coordinate their knowledge, skills, and experience in collaboration will outperform an individual with greater talent than any one of them.
2. Think process, not product: That’s what farmers do; otherwise, there would be no harvest. I agree with Thomas Edison that “vision without execution is hallucination.”
3. Share something small every day: Sharing should be a habit, not a gesture: the more you share with others, the more they’ll share with you.
4. Open your cabinet of curiosities: My take on this is that each of us has — or should have — personal interests, what Kleon calls “treasures” and I call “sources of nutrition” (for me, classical music and art museums) that, in turn, can nourish creative and innovative thinking about how we earn a living.
5. Tell good stories: Anchor your insights in human experience with which others can identify.
6. Teach what you know: Others will learn it and you will increase your understanding of it.
7. Don’t turn into human spam: The most common example is the narcissist. “The world becomes all about them and their work. They can’t find the time to become interested in anything [or anyone] other than themselves.”
8. Learn to take a punch: I agree with Jack Dempsey that “champions get up when they can’t.”
9. Sell out: Commit a best effort to whatever is most important and “don’t leave anything in the tank.”
10. Stick around: As Woody Allen observes, “Eighty percent of success is showing up” and then, I submit, hanging in there.
I also highly recommend Austin’s previously published book, Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative, also published by Workman (2012)