If you’re a writer -- be it a copywriter, blogger, novelist, or whatever -- you’re in the ideas business.
It’s your job to communicate interesting ideas through clear and compelling words.
It’s your job to be creative.
Do you ever struggle with creativity?
Do you ever feel like you’re forced to sit around and wait for a creative idea to strike out of the blue?
I felt that way for years. It was frustrating. And stressful considering I’m always writing under a deadline.
But then I discovered a simple method for instant creativity that allows me to generate gobs of ideas on command.
Can I share that method with you here?
Okay, great! To illustrate this simple creativity method in action, let’s look at Fortnite.
As you may know, Fortnite is a wildly popular video game. How popular is it? Well, in 2018 Fortnite made $2.5 billion.
That’s as much as the top 5 grossing films of 2018 combined!
In Fortnite players get dropped onto an island where they build structures and search for weapons. The player who survives on the island the longest is the winner.
When Fortnite was first released, there was nothing else quite like it available.
Yes, there were action games -- too many to count -- where you had to shoot, punch, kick, and otherwise maim your way to victory.
And yes, there were building games. In fact, one building game -- Minecraft -- is one of the biggest and most popular video games on the planet.
But Fortnite’s genius was connecting these two existing things in a new way.
And that’s the simple method for instant creativity:
Connect two existing things that have never been connected before.
More examples:
In 1997, there were thousands upon thousands of fantasy books featuring wizards. And authors had been writing about kids at school for centuries.
But then J.K. Rowling connected those two existing things and turned them into one of the biggest media franchises of all time.
Another example:
In the 1960s, a man named Bernard Sadow was lugging a suitcase through the airport on his way home from a vacation.
Waiting in customs, he watched a worker effortlessly rolling a heavy machine on a wheeled skid.
When Mr. Sadow got home he attached wheels to his suitcase and the rolling suitcase (another multi-billion dollar idea) was born.
One more:
Once upon a time, a man was sitting in the drive-thru lane at his bank. He loved the speed, convenience, and comfort of doing his banking without ever leaving his car.
And he wondered, “Why don’t restaurants do this?”
And just like that -- for better or worse -- America’s drive-thru fast food industry was born.
Connecting two existing things in a new way is one of my favorite creativity methods.
I’ll share more creativity methods later.
For now, I’d like to hear from you.
Do you ever struggle with creativity? What are some of your favorite methods for coming up with new ideas?
Reply to this email and let me know!
Stay hungry,
Paul
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