Tag: Art

Why you should bring your freakin idea to life and share it with the world.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw the band Bombargo. They were playing a free concert in a park 2 miles from my house. The band is a bundle of energy and entertainment from the off-off Broadway, town of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Which is also one of the cartooniest place names ever invented. The band was on their Disco Surf Rodeo Tour, because any one of those things on its own is just not enough.

For a flavor of their fun music, check out Let It Grow or Oxygen. (Songs I assume were inspired by The Lorax.)

An hour into their set, the band told an interesting story as they introduced one of their signature songs.

During the winter months, Saskatoon is often among the coldest places on the planet. And during one of those cold spells, the lead singer stopped by his brother-bandmate’s igloo home. His brother-bandmate was playing a new song idea on the piano. The lead singer really liked what he was playing and decided that they should write a song to it.

So they wrote the full song that day.

The next day, they recorded the song, shot a video for it, and shared it online.

Then something swiftdiculous happened. Taylor Swift, the most influential musician on the planet, heard the song, loved it, and added it to her Spotify playlist.

The song immediately blew up thanks to Swift’s endorsement.

The band shared that it was rare for them to work so fast and not tweak a song to death. But it was exactly this speed of creating and sharing that led to the success of the song Mr. No Good.

Reminder

Each of the ideas you bring to life is like a lottery ticket. It has the potential to pay off in a big way. So create it, share it and move on. Don’t analyze it to death. Great work doesn’t have to take a long time. Focus on creating work that you love. If you love it, there is a great chance that others will love it too.

Key Takeaway

Create things you love and share them quickly. It’s the key to being a successful artist, innovator, or entrepreneur. The world benefits from your ideas. And your ideas benefit from real-world exposure. Successful ideas are a percentage game. The more ideas you bring to life, the more likely you are to produce hits. And when you love your creations, there is a great chance others will too. So don’t die with your song in your head, your art in your heart or your startup in your soul.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.And consider subscribing to Adam’s Good Newsletter.

There are no guarantees that your great idea will work every time.

Every day there are new songs, books, and blog posts. (Like the new blog post you are reading right now.)

There are new businesses, restaurants, shops, clubs and bars. Including shops where you buy clubs and bars.

There are new clothes, accessories and decoration.

And there are enough new social posts to fill a whole new social sphere every single day.

So why all the newness, Huey Lewis?

Because people have great new ideas worth betting on all the time.

However, you never know which good new ideas will wallop and which ones will whimper.

Sometimes your favorites will fail like New Coke and Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad. And sometimes your maybes will make a mighty roar. Like cat videos.

Learn from both.

And just keep swinging.*

The only real failure is to stop sharing your new ideas.

*Don’t actually be a swinger.

If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them. Especially if you know Kendall Jenner or anyone thinking about swinging.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

Why right now is the perfect time to create outside the lines.

If you want to develop as a creative thinker you have to color outside the lines. I don’t mean the way a young kid does when they have no sense of how to stop themselves when they get to a delineating line on a piece of paper.

What I mean is that creative thinking can not and should not be contained. To improve your creative thinking don’t simply create when and where you are told to create. Don’t create only when a teacher gives you a creative project. Don’t create only when a boss says they want you to help develop a new idea for the summer picnic (which was a fun event we used to have pre-covid, or what I am now calling PC).

As a creative thinker, you should create all the time, because you can’t help thinking, creating and making stuff. And we should all see ourselves as creative thinkers.

Since the initial covid lockdown back in March, I have written over 80 blog posts. I started an illustrated cartoon series called Kirky. I have written the manuscript for a book, which I am deep into the second draft of right now. I am working on bringing a new brand to life in my spare time with my son Magnus and friend Dan Koel. And I have been using Moleskin notebooks the way most people use mousetraps to catch my ideas and make sure they don’t get away.

I always ask people interviewing for creative jobs what they do creatively in their spare time. This isn’t just a curiosity. It helps me tell if you are a true creative thinker who can’t help but develop ideas and bring them to life. Or if you are someone who wants a fun job. But if they tell me they like to make furniture and lampshades out of human remains I know not to hire them. #SorryNotSorryEdGein

One of the women who freelances for The Weaponry (whom I hope to hire full time) is regularly sharing her extracurricular creative projects on social media. I love that. It shows me that she is really a creative thinker at her core. Those kinds of thinkers don’t have to be spurred into action. They can’t stop the thinking and the valuable actions that follow even if they wanted to. Those are the most valuable thinkers to have on your team. And they can’t be replaced by an app or a monkey, or automated by a machine. #JobSecurity

My great friend Betty Garrot, who lived across the street from me in Atlanta, is a Pediatrician by day. But Mrs. Dr. Garrot as we call her at our house, because her husband Crain is an Oncologist, paints a lot. Her home is full of beautiful paintings she has created of scenes she has witnessed around the world. But she paints so much that I expect she has a secret self-storage space stuffed full of paintings that she doesn’t have wall space for in her home. Betty is an amazing painter. But she rarely paints for money. Because it removes the joy of creating. Which is why she does it.

However, I have recognized that some people simply don’t know that they can think and act creatively when they aren’t asked to. They don’t realize that they can create their own assignments and deliver their own ideas.

So here is your reminder to create. Write, paint, photograph, draw, bake, cook, brew, garden, dance, make music, design, develop a business idea, host, decorate, or whatever you like to do to tap into and express your own ideas. Do it even if no one asks you to. Even if no one is watching. Even if you are not getting paid. Even if you are not great at it at first. Because it is great for your brain and your mental health.

Key Takeaway

When I visited Iceland several years ago I met a man named Sven (of course), who told me that Icelanders embrace the short and dark days of winter to engage in their creative activities. Now that we are to our short days and long nights in the Northern Hemisphere, I encourage you to do as the Icelanders do. And make the darkest days of the year the brightest days for thinking and creating.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.